Common

While Common may be rolling with Kanye West these days — see a haunting remix of "Jesus Walks" and the mainstream-gracing productions of Be (the Bilal/John Legend exchange of "Faithful," the incense-lighting, John Mayer-assisted neo-soul of "Go!") — there was once a time when he ruled the underground and went by the name Common Sense. Step back for a second with the Essentials crew and such college campus favorites as the piano-led, David Axelrod-sampling "Resurrection," the jazzbo-leaning "I Used to Love H.E.R.," and Common's decidedly old-school debut, the sax and keyboard-backed "Take It EZ."

Intrigued by the drastic but equally engrossing differences in Common's back catalog? Good, because our Next Steps keep the focus on yesterday and today as well.

The seize-the-mic raps of Common on Can I Borrow a Dollar? reveal a scrappy, playful MC with stacks of boom-bap beats to match (the Isley Brothers/Donald Byrd-swiping stroll of "Breaker 1/9," the dusty breaks and subtle G-funk crawl of "Soul By the Pound"). In other words, it's a world removed from Common's later work, including the lounge-bound, Dilla-produced keys of "The Question"; the churning, banging Chi-town tribute, "Southside"; and the straight-up love poem "Come Close" (written to Common's then-girlfriend, Erykah Badu), which features the unmistakable melodies of Mary J. Blige and the big-budget beats of the Neptunes.

Staying in the game for so long certainly solidified Common's street cred, but it also earned him the kind of sought-after guest spots that pop up in our Deep Cuts.

The soulful, ?uestlove-guided direction of Like Water for Chocolate did more than help Common reach a new audience; it showed yet another side to one of hip-hop's most enigmatic MCs. That patient delivery — one that rides the beat rather than battling it — sounds tailor-made for such laidback posse cuts as "Yelling Away" and "Ghetto Show," as well as a couple of spot-on cuts from street-seasoned poet/singer Jill Scott. Of course, Common's open to any challenge, whether it's the veritable hip-hop all-star game of "Music for Life" (featuring Nas, Busta Rhymes and a recurring Common collaborator, J Dilla) or the cascading piano keys and high-pitched synths in "Days of Our Lives."

The connection between Kanye West and Common reaches much farther than a couple remixes and their collaborations on Common's last two albums, Be and Finding Forever. In fact, Common established himself as a godfather of Chicago rap in the early '90s, not the other way around. Take a look at the liner notes for his first three albums and you'll find a glaring, full-circle Kanye connection many miss — the predominant production of No I.D., a beat conductor and Jermaine Dupri sideman (Usher's "My Boo," Bow Wow's "Let Me Hold You") who first schooled West in the art of sampling at Common's early sessions. No wonder why our Common Essentials feels like a brisk, thorough history of Midwestern hip-hop, from the hungry, hard-hitting bent of Resurrection and One Day It'll All Make Sense to the neo-soul scene epitomized by Common's biggest single, "The Light," a dazzling, refreshingly honest meditation on love and devotion.