Common’s influence has spread much farther than his hometown of Chicago and his fourth studio album, Like Water for Chocolate, made a major impact on Los Angeles duo TiRon & Ayomari.
In an episode of Best Albums, the multi-talented artists explain why Like Water for Chocolate is a special project. The 2000 release included features from Black Thought, Bilal, Jill Scott and Slum Village and explored love, society and manhood.
“I just remember just the branding for the album, the cover, the green, it felt like such a rich album,” TiRon reflects. “It felt like art. It didn’t feel like any other kind of album that was coming along with it. Then, just hearing ‘Dooinit’ was the first single that I had heard and I just remember hearing the beat and just geeking out to it. Then I went to the show where KRS-One and this group Burning Star at the time and Medusa, they rocked at UCLA and Common came out as a special guest. And he was like waving this same flag, that green flag. I just remember geeking out like, ‘Yo, the branding for this album is really crazy.’ Not at the time, but I was just mesmerized by the colorway and the color scheme.”
Making Like Water For Chocolate was a group effort as Common worked with D’Angelo, J Dilla and ?uestlove to create the soundscape that was unique for rap albums at the time. Common’s previous albums followed the boom-bap production formula that was more typical for hip-hop up until that point. But Ayomari says that the beats were exactly what was needed at the time.
“That energy was really building at that point,” he says. “It seems like that producer-artist relationship really brought something outta him. Him coming over there to working with D’Angelo and Dilla and all of that, it just loosened up ’cause it became more musical.”
For TiRon, what makes Like Water For Chocolate so special is the rhymes. He says that this project is where Common really established himself as an elite lyricist.
“I love all the albums that came before, but it was really peak Common to me,” he explained. “It was like the raps, every song, the subject matter for the songs. … It was like black excellence.”
Ayomari continues by adding that Common’s blossom came when many other artists who are now considered legends were also maturing in creativity. Together, they ushered in a new era of artistic expression in rap.
“I think for me the period in which it came out in, not only was Common at peak rapping level, but everyone that was involved in this album was at a peak in their careers, in their artistic expression,” he says. “The fact that they were able to come together from all these various places and find that commonality in their music and blend it so well at a time when a lot of people weren’t even making music that sounded like that and resurfacing, bringing that neo-soul mixed with, infused with high level hip-hop, that shit was an amazing period in time of music.”