Common & Nas: ‘Ghetto Dreams’

Here is a preview of the single off of Common’s 9th studio album, The Dreamer, The Believer, produced entirely by NO.I.D. The song will drop this week. The album sometime in the fall. This is his first release under his new recording deal with Warner Bros. (Peep game, I said “record-ing deal”, NOT “record deal”.)

Originally it was supposed to come out in June, but it never did, as Common was in the process of negotiating his new deal. NAs got impatient and last weekend over the weekend, Nas Tweeted “I’m giving @common 15 minutes or I’m putting this sh– out myself! #GhettoDreams,” and then leaked the track shortly after.

“That was the first song we did for the album,” Common told MTV News. “No ID said, ‘I got something for you.’ He played that beat, I was like, ‘Oh, sh–.’ I kind of hopped into it, like a zone, a character almost [while] writing it. It was just so raw, something like ’95, but new sounding. Then he put up this Nas vocal [sample] going, ‘Ghetto dreams,’ and then I was like, ‘Oh sh–.’ ” – MTV.com

Nas was in the studio with NO.I.D. and the producer played the track for him. Nas immediately wanted to jump on it. The rest is history. And the photo?

“We was at a Fat Joe video, I think,” Common recalled. “Two young MCs, young dudes, just real young cats, one from Chicago, one from Queens that just ended up reconnecting and connecting and always being cool. I ain’t going to say ‘reconnected,’ ’cause every time me and Nas always would chop it up, I felt like we was two musicians that really just loved and respected each other, two voices that really mean something to the culture and respect the culture. So, we always had on a personal level just a respect for each other.” – MTV.com

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