Common and Q-Tip are onto something. While most of us are anticipating the debut of CRS, cats like me are waiting with bated breath for The Standard. Until recently, most of what we heard about the project has been from Tip's lips, but Common recently sat with VH1 to speak on it among other things.
VH1: What can we expect from your work with Q-Tip and the Standard?
Common: A Tribe Called Quest has been a big influence on me. Q-Tip is one of the greatest artists. To me he's like Charlie Parker with jazz. It's really in its incubation right now, but it's coming. The sound is definitely going to be progressive, with the funk and the soul to it, and a little bit of jazz. So this group is like what happens if you get two jazz artists to do an album together. I look at my career as parallel to those jazz musicians who made music until they're 80. God willing, I can do that, and do different things, and do albums with other artists. But the Standard is going to be real MC stuff. You're going to feel that in the Standard.
Had another artist said this, I'd be inclined to take it as typical self-serving arrogance from a rapper, but when it comes to artists like Common and Q-Tip, I can't deny that there's a significant amount of thought and integrity that goes into their work. Hopefully they'll be able to appropriate some rare Dilla beats, and get Bilal, Dwele, and Erykah on some hooks, assuming they read this blog.
