“Communism”

Produced by: No I.D.

Common: "I got the beat and I just thought it was so cold. When I sat down and had the beat I was thinking, I want to do a song where I play with the word 'com' in front of everything. I might have looked in the dictionary to find any 'coms' but I don't think I found any. I wanted it to still be a true rap but just use 'com.' 

"When I say 'Jack Jill's big booty,' I'm referencing a house song from Chicago. I would refernece a lot of Chicago stuff because MCing to me, the first person you wanted to impress was yourself, second you wanted to impress your homies, and then you wanted to impress fellow MCs, and then you want the whole world to hear it. So I thought that would be a dope concept [that would impress people.]

"Some of the feedback I had got on why I didn't sell no records was becuase I was rapping too complex. I consider myself an intelligent person and I was a good student, so I had a certain sensibility about things. I don't think my raps were complex as much as they were coded in Chicago streets, some of it was playing on words that were deeper or using mathematics or Knowledge of Self. So maybe people did think it was complex or it was their way of saying they didn't like it.  

No I.D.: “That record had a dope concept. I can’t really pinpoint who came up with the concept, but I believe it was Common. I did this beat and [the beat for] ‘I Used To Love H.E.R.’ at the same time. And I played him both of the beats on the same night. I used to have a stack of equipment on the dresser at my Mom’s house—I used to call it the leaning tower of equipment. I did them there on a new piece of equipment I’d picked up. If you listen, those two tracks aren’t far off musically, so that was the feel I was going for on both beats, and he ended up picking both of them.”

The Twilite Tone: “You can hear Nas’s influence on that record, but more than anything I feel like I had a lot of influence on that record. To be honest, I think Rashid started to create his own sound and lane here.

“Both No I.D. and I were getting better at producing at this time, and we began to dig more. The music was sounding better and the quality was improving beat wise. We had guys like the Beatnuts in our corner. Not only did we get an education on digging, but they inspired us to dig.

“We not only found the records that everyone was looking for, but more importantly, we started finding our own records. This led to us making our own style of beats. This was something that started in the ’80s for us, but in the ’90s, music just got serious.

“We just wanted to be perceived a certain way, especially coming out of Chicago. We went to these music seminars, and went to perform in New York, and we never got booed. We might have gotten silenced or something like that, because New York was a bunch of assholes at the time. [Laughs.] We wasn’t no handicaps - no one was giving us charity. Motherfuckers would boo you in a second, and you didn’t get no props, you had to earn props.

“Back then it wasn’t like ‘Yo, I’m down with such and such rapper’ and then you’re on. Nah, we had to earn everything. And Resurrection was our statement to say: ‘Nah, you’re gonna take us serious. Fuck that Can I Borrow A Dollar? shit.’ Fuck asking 'Can I,' no—we were taking it now. You have to respect us. We had real dudes in our corner. We had the Beatnuts in our corner. When we met the Beatnuts we realized it was serious.

“Certain records would be $400, people would drive to small towns across the country searching for records, it was like ‘Yo, this shit is a competition.’ Showbiz & AG, Beatminerz, Large Professor—it was like ‘Oh shit.’ It wasn’t just about making beats anymore, it was about using the record first or finding the original copy of the album. Ju Ju and [Psycho] Les are like my older brothers, or cousins. They really inspired us to get serious about digging and making beats. I have the ultimate love and respect for them.“