Jam Sandwich

Electric Circus, the new album by the Chicago-bred rapper Common, is a late contender for hip-hop album of the year: It's a wildly textured, lovingly drawn tapestry of urban psychedelia that, like Meshell Ndegeocello's recently overlooked Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, imagines the form as a febrile mixture of funk, soul, R&B and plenty of out-there sound effects. Featuring production by the Soulquarians and guest spots from Prince, the Neptunes, Stereolab, P.O.D., Mary J. Blige and more, the disc ably follows up the MC's 2000 breakthrough, Like Water for Chocolate. Common called from his new home in New York last month and spoke about it.

Common: Yeah, definitely. I definitely wanted to paint a whole picture, and I feel like the songs are just colors that I use within this picture. And I wanted it to feel like an experience--each song, even with its own difference and own uniqueness, had to have some type of continuity with another song.

DO: You sounded like you were heading in that direction on the last one, too.

C: Yeah, definitely. When I do albums I want to put out a sound; I want it to be a vibration, and I kind of try to stay on that vibration.

DO: With that in mind, how does the songwriting work? Is it a different process than just writing individual songs?

C: Well, yeah. Not differently, but I just kind of learn more about songwriting, so I don't just try to make the rhymes dope. I try to be an instrument with the music, I try to deal with subject matters, I try to make sure that the choruses are good, I try to make sure that it's textured to the songs.

DO: You worked with quite a few different players and producers. How do those collaborations work?

C: What I do on my own is just listen to new music. Once I got new music in my spirit and in my head, I bring that music to the producers, and that gives them a direction. Once that direction is given, then they know where I want to go, and obviously they always take it somewhere past where I would want to go. They know how to interpret it in a whole new way; they come up with some whole new fresh sound. Then I take the music and sit and think about, "What could I write to it?" Sometimes I write a song and it don't come out right; I gotta rewrite the song two to three times.

DO: It's cool how everyone's work sort of came together to form a unique sound. I didn't even know the Neptunes produced "Come Close," the lead single, the first time I heard it, which for them is pretty remarkable.

C: Those brothers, we on a similar vibration. I got a lot of love for their creativity, and they came and knew me, they knew my music. I think we from the same planet as far as music goes. That N.E.R.D album [2002's In Search Of...] was something that I wish I would've done, you know what I'm saying? So it's like we got a lot of similar tastes, so they knew which way to go with me. And they definitely gave me something that didn't sound like what you would expect from the Neptunes.

DO: A lot of your other collaborators have very identifiable sounds, too: ?uestlove, Stereolab, Jay Dee, Prince, Cee-Lo. How important is it to you to get a sound from them that's atypical in some way?

C: Oh, man, that's what producing is for me--they gotta come and give me my sound. The sound that ?uestlove produces on my album with Jay Dee and James Poyser is mine; it's generated by the things that I'm attracted to. And though they created it and they attracted to it, too, producers are sounding particular for Common. I think the Neptunes did that same thing for me. And people know; when I'm working with cats they know I wanna go in this certain direction. Like, for the second song that I did with the Neptunes, I played them a lot of my album, so they could hear where I was going. So we just came up with something else. I give them a direction, and I'm attracted to different things, so they kind of know that and go from there.

DO: During recording did the group of people you'd assembled begin to feel like a single body?

C: Yeah, it felt like a group. Everybody that performed on it, they got love for each other; they respect each other's art. There's a song called "Heaven Somewhere," and everybody that performed on my album performed on that song--that brought it all together even more for me, it felt more like a group. People really wanted to be a part of this; they not only did one song on my album, they did their song and then came and interpreted "Heaven" so everybody would be together on that song. There were songs that people enjoyed that they weren't even on. Put it this way: I think I could've asked any of those artists to be on another song, and if the song kind of fit them, they would've done it, too.