Common and Nas Spit ‘Ghetto Dreams’ on New Single

Back on the scene with a new recording home at Warner Brothers, a new album produced by No I.D. and an entire conservative party outraged at his poetry, Common has returned spitting some of his hardest rhymes in over a decade with his new single 'Ghetto Dreams.'

The Chicago MC kicks an ode to the hood over the No I.D. banger, replete with a scratched chorus and verse by Nas, who leaked the song on Twitter over the weekend.

"I decided to write about ghetto dreams just in a way that was raw," Common told MTV, of his inspiration for the song. "I almost approached it like I was a character because I don't smoke cigarettes and blah, blah, blah. But I still was talking abut those things 'cause it's like, if I step in the shoes of myself and my other friends and people that just dream about higher things coming from a tougher place. I told it in respect to the relationship I got with my lady, it's ill. It's not a love song or none of that; it's just raw. It's ill lyrics man, I'm telling you."

Calling on No I.D. -- the revered Chicago producer, who previously crafted Com's 1994 classic LP 'Resurrection' -- to produce the entirety of 'The Dreamer, The Believer,' was a long-overdue move for Common. While the music marks a return to form for the MC and his longtime collaborator, the artwork is a throwback as well, depicting a skinny young Common and Nas, in a photograph from a video shoot in the mid '90s.

"We was at a Fat Joe video, I think," Common said of the shot. "Two young MCs, young dudes, just real young cats, one from Chicago, one from Queens that just ended up reconnecting and connecting and always being cool. I ain't going to say 'reconnected,' 'cause every time me and Nas always would chop it up, I felt like we was two musicians that really just loved and respected each other, two voices that really mean something to the culture and respect the culture. So, we always had on a personal level just a respect for each other."

Common's highly anticipated ninth album 'The Dreamer, The Believer,' will be in stores this fall.