This is probably one of the best Common songs in the past five years (we’ll call it a Common song since he takes all the rapping), including album cuts.  Beyond how unbelievably well No I.D. and the rest of the Cocaine 80s crew bottled up early spring into a single instrumental with twinkling filtered keys, the one long Common verse is essentially Storytelling for Rappers 101.  Common has the unique privilege being of a older rapper statesman without having already established himself as a thug (oddly enough), so he gets to make songs like this without losing any credibility.  And he couldn’t be more perfect to string out a song like this.  I don’t really know what to write about a song like this beyond “this shit is absolutely phenomenal.”  It doesn’t stand out for being one of Common’s most earth-shattering verses or anything – it’s just perfect for what it is.  In a sense, I’m thankful that it never landed on an album.  It’s much better as a quick one-off, a lyrical scrawl in the dirt, a short flash vignette.