After finding great critical acclaim, as well as commercial success working with Kanye West on a pair of albums, conscious Chicago rapper Chicago went away from this winning formula and worked with Pharrell on his album ‘Universal Mind Control’.

 The album was released to mixed reviews, so it wasn’t as convincing a smash as his two prior albums, ‘Be’ and ‘Finding Forever’ although he did manage to snare a Grammy nomination. Now, Common has decided to exclusively work with Kanye West mentor No I.D. on ‘The Dreamer, The Believer’ and the question is: how did this move work for him? The answer - it's a resounding success.

The set opens with ‘The Dreamer’ a soulful, smooth lyrical track that sets the tone for the entire album. On this, which boasts a poem from Maya Angelou, Common raps that he “told 'Ye he’s about to win the Grammys now”. He also uses the clever metaphor that these rappers have no heart and he’s the pacemaker.

Common then holds his own on a collaboration with heavyweight Nas on the raw track ‘Ghetto Dreams’. This one finds Nas bragging that he has “powerful women playing roles of submission, lawyers on leashes”.

‘Blue Sky’, another great track, finds a shout-out from Common, who is himself becoming an accomplished actor, to the Leonardo DiCaprio flick 'Inception': “this is my inception I’m writing my dream”

The hardest track on the set is called ‘Sweet’. On this punchline-heavy excursion, which some have seen to be a diss record aimed at Drake, one of the standout lines is “my name synonymous with prominence”.

Although Common has a great history of making pretty good love songs, ‘Lovin I Lost’ seems a bit misplaced.

Other highlights include the feel good ‘Celebrate’, where Common declares “we gon' get around like Tupac”. ‘The Believer’ ends the album on an extreme high note, and finds Common in his usual thoughtful mode: “do they end up in coffins because we never taught them”. He’s aided by John Legend on the chorus.

Assisted by sweet sounding beats and some worthwhile cameos, Common blends the conscious, the aggressive and the melodious very well on this set, which ranks as a career best,