Every time you hear people talk about Madonna – whether it is a critic, fan or peer – they always laud her for her ability to “reinvent” herself. I guess that’s to say that Madonna has managed to stay relevant for the past quarter century by reshaping and reinventing her persona and music to coincide with whatever is or was the current climate. It’s a skill, a great one. The hip hop equivalent would be LL Cool J. LL turns 40 next January, having released 13 albums beginning with the classic Radio in 1985. Every time you see him – say, at June’s BET Awards – he looks as faddish as a 21-year old shopping on 125th in Harlem. When his albums and singles drop, they’re flavored like whatever the radio is offering at the moment. Folks like Madonna and LL change with the times, but it’s a change dictated by the times. Then you have a dude like Common. Common changes, alright, but it’s not a reinvention, more like an evolution.

Later this month, Comm will drop his seventh album, Finding Forever, in the midst of an evolution/change that might be the most dramatic of his 15-year career. From Can I Borrow A Dollar (1992) to Resurrection (1994) to One Day It’ll All Make Sense (1997) to Like Water For Chocolate (2000) to Electric Circus (2002) to Be (2005), Common surfaced as a different man and artist. In the 2 years since Be – his highest selling, critically acclaimed, Grammy-nominated artwork – Common has become a sought after actor and a high profile product spokesman, lost his good friend and classic collaborator J Dilla to lupus and been anointed by Oprah as some pseudo-hip hop mouthpiece for mainstream America. Since Common has always been an artist whose music was very personal and reflective, one can only wonder what to expect from Forever.

In an article on MTV.com, Common gave us an abstract clue as to what we might expect or at least what his intentions are:

"For me, Finding Forever means being able to exist through music and art forever. Finding a place where I can make something that will be here and be timeless, transcend age barriers and color barriers. And I look at music like Bob Marley's or Marvin Gaye's or Stevie Wonder's or A Tribe Called Quest's, that's forever music. I always wanted to do that with my music, but this is just making a statement of seeking that place of forever music. And now with the death of J Dilla and other things, you start thinking about forever lasting for real through music. Jay Dee will last forever through his music and hopefully generations down the line will know about Common through his music. And it's also saying: I've been doing this for a nice period of time, so I'm trying to find the place where I can keep existing in the game and make music I love."

So maybe that’s it – that’s where Forever is taking us, on a quest for timelessness. On Resurrection, Comm was a young buck, resisting commercial trends to do it for the love and lamenting a perceived loss of organic love for hip hop. One Day dropped at the height and near-end of hip hop’s golden age; and it featured Common at the height of his straight-up, raw, naked emcee powers. Then he hit us with Like Water, perhaps Comm at his most artistic moment, serving somewhat as frontman for what was actually a supergroup, The Soulquarians (Comm, D’Angelo, J Dilla, ?uestlove, James Poyser, Bilal, Erykah Badu, Roy Hargrove, etc.). When you make such a strong artistic statement, the only thing left to do is search for new territory, which is what we got with his next evolution, Electric Circus, featuring Comm The Explorer and his odes to Jimi Hendrix and 9-part suites about the meaning of “Heaven”. Next the man recentered and evolved to a hip hop wiseman and gave the most sagacious and adult hip hop album in recent years – Be. It’s maybe one of the most under-appreciated 5-album strings of his generation.

But what now? What now, after his new-found Hollywood stardom, with a role alongside Jeremy Piven, Andy Garcia and Ben Affleck in Smoking Aces and an upcoming part with Denzel Washington and Russell Crow in the Ridley Scott epic, American Gangster? What now, after international exposure as the face of clothing giant Gap or his new turn as conscious spokesman for a new line of Converse? Comm’s mug is on big billboards in Time Square and he’s the subject of feature stories in Billboard magazine. In the May 26th article, Common: The People’s Champ, Tim Reid, senior marketing executive at Geffen Records, says, Comm “… has a brand that stands the test of time and he’s constantly getting new fans.” Well, Madonna and LL have managed to remain relevant and iconic by towing the line of personal integrity (relatively speaking) and at the same time, appeasing the changing and shifting tastes of broad fan bases as fickle as ornery toddlers. Common has managed to stay respected and cultishly revered by simply being a product of himself. His music has stayed true to his personal journey as an evolving emotional and physical man, his own artistic progressions and interests and  his keen choices of musical acquaintances (NO.I.D., The Soulquarian crew, Kanye West). But what will this new Pop Culture Common render? The anticipation for Forever is primarily in wondering whether or not Common will be able to balance Hollywood and Madison Avenue with art. He’s stated that he’s seeking to make timeless music, classic art that age and years can’t wear down. That’s ambitious given his new fame and the artistic vices he’s bound to encounter. Will Finding Forever be his latest evolution? Or will we get a reinvention?