Pitchfork

Chicago's dapper hip-hop smiley-guy Common returns to the fore July 10 with the release of his latest LP, Finding Forever (Geffen), according to Billboard.com. As the man whose mother named him Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. told the industry website today, "I want to leave a mark on this earth...making music and saying what I have to say in my music is one of the ways I will exist forever."

To achieve his Achillean aims, Common has enlisted the talents of top-tier folk like Second City paisano Kanye West, revered late producer J Dilla, and clothes-shunning crooner D'Angelo, as well as a Nina Simone sample, and, yes, Lily Allen.

Allen turns up on a tune called "Driving Me Wild", which features the lyric "Driving herself crazy like the astronaut lady/ Love is not a mystery, it's everything." Um, no comment.

Black Eyed Pea will.i.am and Kanye/John Legend buddy Devo Springsteen take turns in the production chair as well.

Catch Common if you can-- the man woos girlfriends at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University April 14 and New York's Central Park SummerStage on June 20.