I’m a fan of rapper Common’s music. He is definitely respected in the music industry with his witty and conscious lyrics that he puts out. I was invited out to a private listening party for Commons upcoming album, The Dreamer, The Believer last night at Jermaine Dupri’s studio in Atlanta. I never been to that studio but it was very nicely decorated. As we pulled up, fly cars were parked out front and all sorts of celebs were making their way inside.

In the party I spotted Keri Hilson, Towanda Braxton, Bu(Akon’s Brother) Neyo and his fiance Monyetta Shaw, J Holiday, Young Jeezy and a host of other record execs and industry people. It was jammed pack and I’m sure it was over capacity but everyone was excited to hear Commons latest project. The man of the hour finally arrived, very hyped up and in a good mood. He thanked everyone for coming out and said, follow him to the studio! We gathered around then he started to talk about his inspiration for the new album. He said, “I’m a hip hop n*gga and there is different sides to me. When you listen to my album, I want you to be motivated and inspired, thats my ultimate goal.” He then started blasting off the new tracks for us to hear.

Here are the songs he played in order:

• Raw~ about going to a club
• Sweet~ this song has a newly released video that came out today. Its about hip hop music. The video pays homage to Haiti and thats where it was filmed.
• Cloth~ two people cut from the same cloth, nice!
• Celebrate~Very upbeat, sure to get a lot of airplay
• The Dreamer~deep song about feelings, Maya Angelou featured on track
• Ghetto Dreams~hard core about him and a girl having dreams of getting out the hood.
• Gold~headbanger great song
• Believer~up temple nice song