After Producing Jay-Z, No I.D. Wants Common

By Quibian Salazar-Moreno

      After getting shouted out as Kanye’s mentor on “Big Brother” and producing “Success”, arguably the best song on Jay-Z’s “American Gangster” which also features Nas, producer No I.D. is ready to reconnect with the rapper he stepped in the game with, Common. He says it’s something that he doesn’t even need to ask him about.

      “I’m not going to discuss it with him, because I know due to our history, it’s not a discussion — it’s an action,” No I.D. told Entertainment Weekly. “I want to bring him the music. Maybe in my more prideful moments, I was like, ‘He ain’t asked me; I never went anywhere.’ But I really, deep down, wanted to see him and Kanye achieve what they were going to achieve. Music needed that, and I needed to do other things. But I’m at a moment where I know he’s going to appreciate what I have to offer. I don’t believe he’s peaked yet…. [Certain] combinations of people create certain things. I did the Jay song, it made me realize that I want to get back to the people that I can create certain things with. I took a breather, and I’m back with all this energy.”

      No I.D. was the lead producer on Common’s albums “Can I Borrow a Dollar?”, “Resurrection,” and “One Day It’ll All Make Sense.” They went their separate ways after “One Day…” but there wasn’t ever any beef.

      “When [Common and I] were doing our first two albums, [1992’s] Can I Borrow a Dollar? and [1994’s] Resurrection, we weren’t thinking about commercial singles,” No I.D. said. “It was really a creative battle to prove that we were good. We made an album that we felt was a really good album and picked the best song to be a single. Maybe doing the third album [1997’s One Day It’ll All Make Sense] we started thinking ‘single,’ and then, ‘Okay, let’s put Lauryn Hill on this.’ But it was still from a pure place, in my eyes. After a while, when we were both frustrated with not having the success we felt like we should have, that’s maybe even the true reason we went our separate ways. From that point, we both made our personal journeys to find success.”

      Since then, No I.D. has been working with Jermaine Dupri and So So Def Records.