Common live @Only The Brave Block Party by Diesel, Paris

Concert information

This is how a block party is supposed to be. Great acts, a good vibe, and people joining for the love of HIP-HOP!
Common's performance at Only The Brave Block Party in Paris was short but INTENSE! All ingredients were there and he really did the job to get the crowd pumped: from crowd surfing to flirting with girls on stage, Common turned it out, simply put.

Artist

Common

Common (originally Common Sense) was a highly influential figure in rap's underground during the '90s, keeping the sophisticated lyrical technique and flowing syncopations of jazz-rap alive in an era when commercial gangsta rap was threatening to obliterate everything in its path. His literate, intelligent, nimbly performed rhymes and political consciousness certainly didn't fit the fashions of the moment, but he was able to win a devoted cult audience. By the late '90s, a substantial underground movement had set about reviving the bohemian sensibility of alternative rap, and Common finally started to receive wider recognition as a creative force. Not only were his albums praised by critics, but he was able to sign with a major label that guaranteed him more exposure than ever before.

Common was born Lonnie Rashied Lynn on the South Side of Chicago, an area not exactly noted for its fertile hip-hop scene. Nonetheless, he honed his skills to the point where -- performing as Common Sense -- he was able to catch his first break, winning The Source magazine's Unsigned Hype contest. He debuted in 1992 with the single "Take It EZ," which appeared on his Combat-released debut album, Can I Borrow a Dollar?; further singles "Breaker 1/9" and "Soul by the Pound" helped establish his reputation in the hip-hop underground, although some critics complained about the record's occasional misogynistic undertones. Common Sense subsequently wound up on Ruthless Records for his 1994 follow-up, Resurrection, which crystallized his reputation as one of the underground's best (and wordiest) lyricists. The track "I Used to Love H.E.R." attracted substantial notice for its clever allegory about rap's descent into commercially exploitative sex-and-violence subject matter, and even provoked a short-lived feud with Ice Cube. Subsequently, Common Sense was sued by a ska band of the same name, and was forced to shorten his own moniker to Common; he also relocated from Chicago to Brooklyn.

Bumped up to parent label Relativity, Common issued the first album under his new name in 1997. One Day It'll All Make Sense capitalized on the fledgling resurgence of intelligent hip-hop with several prominent guests, including Lauryn Hill, Q-Tip, De La Soul, Erykah Badu, Cee-Lo, and the Roots' Black Thought. The album was well received in the press, and Common raised his profile with several notable guest spots over the next couple of years; he appeared on Pete Rock's Soul Survivor, plus two watermark albums of the new progressive hip-hop movement, Mos Def and Talib Kweli's Black Star and the Roots' Things Fall Apart. Common also hooked up with indie rap kingpins Rawkus for a one-off collaboration with Sadat X, "1-9-9-9," which appeared on the label's seminal Soundbombing, Vol. 2 compilation.

With his name popping up in all the right places, Common landed a major-label deal with MCA, and brought on Roots drummer ?uestlove as producer for his next project. Like Water for Chocolate was released in early 2000 and turned into something of a breakthrough success, attracting more attention than any Common album to date (partly because of MCA's greater promotional resources). Guests this time around included Macy Gray, MC Lyte, Cee-Lo, Mos Def, D'Angelo, jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove, and Afro-beat star Femi Kuti (on a tribute to his legendary father Fela). Plus, the singles "The Sixth Sense" and "The Light" (the latter of which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance) earned considerable airplay. Following that success, Common set the stage for his next record with an appearance on Mary J. Blige's No More Drama in early 2002. He issued his most personal work to date with Electric Circus, a sprawling album that polarized fans, in December of that year. Be, a much tighter album that was produced primarily by Kanye West, followed in May 2005, netting four Grammy nominations. West remained on board for both Finding Forever (2007) and the lighter Universal Mind Control (2008), though the Neptunes dominated the latter.

more>>>

Label

Interscope

Interscope Records is an American record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and operates as one third of UMG's Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group.
Interscope was formed in 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field with financial support from Atlantic Records (which owned a 53% stock in the label). Upon its launch, it was initially distributed by Atlantic Records' subsidiary East West Records America. A&R Executive John McClain and producer Beau Hill were also part of the original founding team.
The label's first release was Latin-rapper Gerardo, who scored a top 5, gold hit with "Rico Suave" in the spring of 1991. More early success came later in the year when the label released the debut album from Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, which went platinum in early 1992. During this time, Interscope also signed rapper Tupac Shakur, Primus, No Doubt and Nine Inch Nails.
Death Row Records
Though Interscope seemed to be on a roll with its first few releases, the label was faced with criticism for manufacturing what was considered cookie-cutter hip-hop. That changed when, in 1992, Iovine financially assisted Suge Knight and Dr. Dre in the formation of Death Row Records, and arranged for Interscope to distribute its records. The joint venture hit pay-dirt when Death Row and Interscope released The Chronic, the solo debut album from Dr. Dre. Released in December, the album became a seminal hit into the new year; eventually going triple platinum, and furthermore introduced the then up-and-coming Snoop Dogg—whose own debut album Doggystyle was released in late 1993 and became a monstrous success as well, selling over 800,000 in its first week of release.
Following the success of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, Death Row and Interscope became powerful labels in the industry, both collectively and respectively. With this acclaim, however, came criticism from various sources over the gangsta rap image that was being perpetuated. Feeling the heat from activist groups, Time Warner (Interscope's parent company) refused to distribute Death Row's next slated release, Dogg Food by Tha Dogg Pound, which had been originally scheduled for release in June 1995. The album was subsequently pushed back, while Death Row and Interscope made an outside deal with Priority Records to distribute that album upon its release.
The controversy swirling around Death Row and Interscope made Time Warner's shareholders nervous, so much so that in late 1995, the company sold all of its stake in Interscope Records to MCA Music Entertainment (later renamed Universal Music Group). Not wanting to take on the scrutiny that plagued Time Warner, MCA too initially refused to distribute many of Interscope's Death Row releases; most notably All Eyez on Me, the much anticipated forthcoming Death Row debut album by Tupac Shakur, which was later certified Diamond in the U.S. This forced Death Row and Interscope to strike a deal with Island Records to distribute that particular album outside of its home base.
Death Row began to collapse in 1996 following the death of Shakur, the incarceration of Knight and departure of Dr. Dre, who had left a year earlier. In August 1997, Interscope (under pressure from Universal Music Group) made the decision to sell off all of its share in the label. Interscope, however, has continued to release posthumous albums by Shakur in conjunction with Amaru Entertainment.

Though Interscope initially made a name for itself as a label dealing heavily in hip-hop and urban music, by the mid 2000s, its range began to expand and, subsequently, the company would eventually experience success with artists in all genres, for example, the Industrial rock artist Nine Inch Nails (Nothing Records), shock rocker Marilyn Manson, Limp Bizkit, Helmet, No Doubt and most recently, the Latin artist Kings Of Flow in a unique partnership with Los Angeles based indie Latin label.
Following UMG's acquisition of PolyGram in 1998, Geffen Records and A&M Records were merged into Interscope—making it the extremely powerful and leading unit at UMG that it is today. In 2004, Dreamworks Records was merged into the Interscope-Geffen-A&M group bringing over such artists as Blink-182, All Time Low, Papa Roach, Rise Against, Nelly Furtado, Lifehouse, AFI, The All-American Rejects, Jimmy Eat World and Rufus Wainwright among others (the artists were divided between Interscope and Geffen, with most going to the latter). In 2005, Interscope launched a new imprint called Cherrytree Records, for emerging artists; beginning with group The Lovemakers and now includes Far East Movement, Feist, Flipsyde, Tokio Hotel, JoJo, Lady Gaga and Robyn. In May 2007, Interscope announced a joint-venture partnership with Justin Timberlake to create a new recording label called Tennman Records, with the first artist being Esmee Denters. Early 2010 saw Interscope signing South African hip-hop group Die Antwoord, marking the first time a South African act has caught their attention, through an effective viral marketing campaign and a Facebook following of close to 50,000 fans and millions of hits on YouTube.
At the SXSW conference in 2006, Interscope lawyer Darryl Franklin said during a panel discussion, that the contract with the group The Pussycat Dolls is unique in that its members are actually salaried employees of the record label and, by design, completely interchangeable. This means that in addition to CD sales, the label also controls merchandise, web sites and all other commercial aspects of the group and their income, excluding songwriting.

more>>>

Venue

Block Party at Place Stalingrad Paris

On May, 15th, Diesel invited the cream of the crop rap singers for a huge Block Party in the very middle of Paris, place de Stalingrad. Of course Grandcrew was there to film the entire thing.

The block party featured exclusive live performances of Hocus Pocus, David Walters, Selah Sue, Sly Johnson and of course US hip hop superstar Common.more>>>

Promoter