Common’s Eclectic ‘Electric Circus’

Common progressed throughout the ‘90s going from an underground rapper with a small but loyal fan base in the South Side of Chicago to a majorly successful, award-winning songwriter, actor, producer, and poet. But to really understand his fifth studio album, Electric Circus, we need to look back at the year 2002 — to a time just before MCA was absorbed by Geffen Records, and the neo-soul/hip-hop collective, The Soulquarians were still going strong.

Following his Gold-certified major label debut, Like Water for Chocolate (2000), Common wanted to do something more experimental, finding motivation in other veins of music, particularly the more psychedelic sounds of the ‘60s, citing Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix as a major inspiration for his more avant-garde approach.

In an interview back in 2006, The Roots drummer/producer Questlove spoke about how the record centered on the New York City studio founded in 1970 by the late-Hendrix. “To understand that record is to understand the history of what Electric Lady Studios was to this whole Soulquarian unit. We started off in the spring of ‘96 and that’s where we created Things Fall Apart for The Roots, D’Angelo’s Voodoo, Erykah’s Mama’s Gun, Common’s Like Water For Chocolate, the Black Star record, Mos Def’s record, Bilal’s record, Musiq’s album… Pretty much the left of center of hip-hop was using that place as much…