Album · Common
Be by Common
Be is an album by Common, released in 2005. 1 song from it has charted on rock radio countdowns, with 1 countdown appearance in total. The biggest is “Be (Intro)”, on 1 list with a best position of #545.
Be, Common's sixth album, arrived in 2005 as a fresh start. Electric Circus had underwhelmed three years earlier, his old label MCA had vanished into a merger, and so the rapper threw in with his fellow Chicagoan Kanye West, signing to West's GOOD Music in its joint venture with Geffen. West handled most of the production and served as executive producer, with longtime collaborator J Dilla supplying beats of his own.
What came out is lean and warm, jazz-rap grooves with a quiet-storm glow and Common sounding like a man who has stopped trying to prove anything. It entered the Billboard 200 at number two, moving 185,000 copies in its opening week, drew a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, and got a perfect score from XXL. It went Platinum in 2025, and Rolling Stone and Billboard have since ranked it with the best rap records ever made.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Be on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Be (Intro) | 1 | #545 | – | 2024 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.