Common - I Used to Love H.E.R.
"Original, untampered, pure, a down sister. Boy, I tell you, I miss her."
Album: Resurrection [2nd album]
Recorded: Chicago, Illinois
Genre: Hip Hop, Jazz Rap, Midwest Hip Hop, Conscious Hip Hop
Album Release: October 4th 1994
Single Release: September 27th 1994 [lead single]
Length: 4:38
Producer: No I.D.
Vocalist: Common [age 22]
Label: Relativity Records
Music Video
Live in 2007
Mack 10 - Westside Slaughterhouse
Common - The Bitch in Yoo
Charts, Streams & Sales
Spotify: Over 25 million
YouTube Music: Over 14 million
About.com Greatest Hip Songs of All Time: #1
VH1 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop: #69
Credits
Details
- Classic track. It sounds like a guy rapping about an ex but at the end Common reveals he was talking about hip hop. The H.E.R. in the title stands for hearing every rhyme so the songs full name is 'I Used to Love Hearing Every Rhyme'. H.E.R. also stands for Hip Hop in it's Essance is Real.
On the track, Common details how the love of his life, hip hop, has changed from meaningful music that he treated with the utmost respect "about my people she was teaching me, by not preaching to me, but speaking to me" to being steeped in a hollow, superficial, violent lifestyle when commercial interests became prominent "told her that if she got an image and gimmick that she coud make money."
West coast rapper Ice Cube, who had starred in the 1991 film Boyz N The Hood, took the song personally as it features the line "I wasn't salty when she was with the boyz n the hood." Even though Common says he wasn't salty, it's clear from the song he thinks hip hop became lesser when it was associated with gangster rap, "now she's a gangster rolling with gangster bitches" and "stressing how hardcore and rich she is, she was really the reallest before she got into showbiz."
Even though Common is from Chicago, he and Ice Cube became embroiled in the growing east coast vs west coast beef that ultimately claimed the lives of Tupac and Biggie Smalls. Ice Cube wrote a verse on 'Westside Slaughterhouse' by Mack 10 featuring the lines "Used to love her. You just mad cos we fucked her. Pussy whipped bitch with no common sense." Common responded with his track 'The Bitch in Yoo'.
Following the killing of Tupac and only 30 days after the murder of Biggie, the leader of the Nation of Islam, Minister Farrakhan, called a peace summit in Chicago and the beef was put to bed. The Nation of Islam were involved because both Ice Cube and Common's producer No I.D. were members and the organisation wanted to cultivate an image of internal harmony.
- The album 'Resurrection' is divided into two halves, East Side of Stony and West Side of Stony that refer to Stoney Avenue in South Chicago.
- In the 90's, artists like Common, Outkast and The Roots were considered to be alternative hip hop because their music was different from the thugged out rap that dominated the charts. Whereas today, it's though to be a part of the core genre while the real alternative is abstract or experimental hip hop.
Artwork
