Common & Pete Rock, The Auditorium Vol.1 review loma vista
Music, Sounds

Common & Pete Rock, The Auditorium Vol.1: REVIEW

by Darcy MacDonald

“The Soul Brother #1 and Com wear their respective legacies as bona fide icons on their sleeves without falling trap to gimmicks.”

Common & Pete Rock, The Auditorium Vol.1 (Loma Vista)

When self-appointed genre authorities get on their “back-in-the-day” podium to shit on the current state of hip hop, the irony is manyfold. “The day” might have been anywhere from 5 to 35 years ago, depending on the messenger, but the message never changes: familiar comfort is better and new is confusing, and therefore awful. Will this collab LP from two of the culture’s most consistent talents do anything to quell old-head-syndrome? Frankly, that’s neither Pete Rock nor Common’s responsibility. They just make records, and together they’ve made one that avoids glorifying or lamenting the past, speaks to the present and stays hopeful for the future. On The Auditorium Vol.1, the Soul Brother #1 and Com wear their respective legacies as bona fide icons on their sleeves without falling trap to gimmicks or hitting the listener over the head with unnecessary self-reference. It’s honest and it’s dope, and that’s all great music ever needs to do. Mission accomplished. 8.5/10 Trial Track: “All Kinds of Ideas”

“All Kinds of Ideas” from The Auditorium Vol.1 by Common and Pete

For more on Common and Pete Rock, please visit their website. This review was originally published in the Aug. 2024 issue of Cult MTL.

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Posted in Music, Sounds

by Darcy MacDonald

Contributor
Darcy MacDonald has been with Cult MTL since day one, a decade ago. Which means today, he’s a middle-aged white guy (albeit one more interested in other people’s ideas than in his own). He was previously a columnist and reporter for Montreal Mirror, and has also created content (FKA “written”) for RBMA, Noisey, Montreal Gazette, The National Post and probably some other great places he’s forgotten about. Music, culture, community and miscellaneous questions in search of answers all come across his desk, sooner or later.