Be Review

Be is what happens when a great rapper and a producer at the height of his gifts agree to do less. After the sprawl of Electric Circus, Common moved to Geffen and Kanye West's GOOD Music, and Kanye executive produced the album and made most of it, with J Dilla supplying the rest. The result is eleven songs in forty three minutes, warm with soul samples and never in a hurry.

The Corner puts The Last Poets on a Chicago street song, Go! became its biggest single, and J Dilla's It's Your World closes it on a long, easy groove. Common writes about love, faith and his city with a plainness that suits the beats: nothing here is trying too hard. Testify, over a Honey Cone sample, tells a whole courtroom story in one song, a woman steering a judge and jury into convicting her partner of a crime she committed.

It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, earned four Grammy nominations and the top rating XXL gives, and Metacritic's 83 reflects how widely it was admired. It is a modest album by design, and the modesty is the achievement: one warm, unhurried mood held for forty three minutes without a slack song. That mood and the production carry the S, and the writing, plain rather than dazzling, is an A.