Hip hop legends Common and Pete Rock have dropped their first ever full-length collaboration, The Auditorium, Vol. 1.
The 15-track album is said to be influenced by the ’90s era of Hip-Hop. “I always feel like I got something to prove but its just fun to me to make music,” Pete Rock wrote in reference to the forthcoming project.
The Volume 1 edition features guest appearances from Bilal on “So Many People,” Jennifer Hudson on “A GOD (There Is),” De La Soul’s Posdnuos on “When The Sun Shines Again” and PJ on “Everything’s So Grand.” Common said of the record, “Pete Rock is one of The Greatest Creators Hip Hop and Music has ever seen. It has been a dream of mine to work with him on an album.” He continued, “And once we got together and I I was around him and all his records and his MPC I felt the spirit of what I always loved in hip hop in soul music and why I wanted to be a part of the artform. His beats, his production, his scratches, took me to a place where I could just MC freely. It felt I like I was home.”
The new energized record serves as follow up to Common’s A Beautiful Revolution, an album celebrating black joy while bemoaning black pain.
Fielding love songs, existential ruminations and anthems of solidarity and resistance, The Auditorium Vol. 1 finds Common sermonizing in the key of life on its every glory and struggle, offering hope amid the darkness and remaining a voice of mature wisdom in a rudderless world.
“It’s a new sound, but it’s got the spirit and energy of what we loved [from past] generations,” Common said to PEOPLE.