Common has revealed a surprising fact about the making of his hit single, “The Light,” which was produced by J. Dilla and remains the most streamed song from 2000’s Like Water For Chocolate.
During an appearance on the Juan Epstein podcast alongside Pete Rock, the Chicago MC was asked about whether he and the late Bobby Caldwell ever discussed the classic track, which sample’s the singer’s “Open Your Eyes.”
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“I wanna say, God rest his soul,” he started. “And I feel bad: at one point he had wanted us to do a record together and we ain’t get to do it. He did charge us 100% publishing for that. And to this day, Questlove and my lawyer, and Derek who is my manager and one of my best friends said, ‘Take that song off the album.’ I said, ‘Are y’all fucking crazy?’ Questlove said he was tryna talk me out of it, he was tryna figure out how he could talk me into taking that song off the album. He’d just say, ‘Aww, I don’t think it fit the rest of the Dilla-vibe beats and stuff.”
However, in retrospect, Com doesn’t regret giving Caldwell exactly what he asked for, because he believes the “Open Your Eyes” sample made “The Light” the beloved record it is today.
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What most, including JuanEp hosts Peter Rosenberg and Cipha Sounds, didn’t know prior to this interview, however, is that the sample wasn’t added to the song until after Common wrote his verses.
“Let me say this: he deserved 100%,” he added. “What happened in the creation of that song was, Dilla and I was riding around. We was listening to a beat CD. Dilla was playing the beats, and then Frank [Nitt] told me, ‘Yo, wait til this next beat come on.’ It came on, and I was like, ‘Oh shit, J.D., wassup?’ We was about to go get some food, and I said, ‘Man, I love that, but can you change the drums?’ He said, ‘We ain’t going to get no food.’ We went right back to his spot. And he put the new drums.
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Common continued: “I came back to New York, wrote the love song. Then he put the hook, he put the scratches to compose the hook. That wasn’t on the beat initially. It was like he constructed that hook around what I was talking about. But it was Bobby Caldwell’s song that made it; and it was J. Dilla’s composition of putting that hook together that made it what it is.”
Check out the snippet from the interview below.
Common tells the story of creating "The Light" with Dilla and reveals they had to give Bobby Caldwell 100% of the publishing to clear the sample. He also says his manager, lawyer and Questlove tried to get him to leave it off 'Like Water For Chocolate'
(via @JuanEpIsLife) pic.twitter.com/bkWdWN3KQy
— Andrew Barber (@fakeshoredrive) July 18, 2024
Since launching the press run to support his latest effort, The Auditorium Vol. 1, which is a joint project with Pete Rock, Common has regaled fans and interviewers with all kinds of tidbits about his vast catalog as well.
During a chat with Miss Info at EEEEEEATSCON earlier this month, the Chicago native recalled how the veteran media personality played a part in his rise.
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“I was close to finished,” he said about his sophomore album Resurrection, which was released in 1994. “That album won’t be what it is if I hadn’t gotten that NasIllmatic early copy [from Miss Info]. I went back in the lab — I saw the level that we needed to function at, and it’s amazing.”
About his new joint album with Pete Rock, the 52-year-old added: “Pete Rock, who produced ‘The World Is Yours,’ is now in our live performance. We played ‘The World Is Yours’ and I get to rhyme one of my rhymes from Resurrection over that beat, so it’s kind of a full circle.”
Last year, Men’s Health published an interview with Common in which he reflected on Hip Hop’s arduous journey and the role Nas played in bringing it to where it is today.
“I remember being at a performance and then walking outside of the show, and this dude came up to me, and he said, ‘Common, I really love your music. I want to tell you that your song “Retrospect For Life” made me decide to have my kid,’” he began, illustrating the importance of writing songs that people can connect with.
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He continued: “I wrote that song because I had been through that experience, and there was a moment when I was on the way to the abortion clinic, and the mother of my child decided, ‘We can’t do this again,’ because this was after already having one abortion. Let’s figure out whatever we have to do. That situation showed when you receive experiences from a place of truth, it just resonates in a different way.”
He then circled back to the person who opened the doors for artists like him, saying: “That’s why we related to when Nas talked about what he talked about on Illmatic. He experienced it, and the way he told it was just beautiful. In ‘One Love,’ he talks to his boy in prison. That’s one of the greatest songs ever written.”
