Resurrection

Released by Relativity, Resurrection was the last album to carry the full name Common Sense. No I.D. produced thirteen of its fifteen tracks, and Ynot, also known as the Twilite Tone, produced Chapter 13 and Sum Shit I Wrote. Peter Kang of Relativity was executive producer. Mista Sinista of the X-Ecutioners scratches in place of choruses on most songs. The album is split into the East Side of Stony, tracks 1 to 7, and the West Side of Stony, tracks 8 to 15, after Stony Island Avenue on Chicago's South Side. It closes with Pop's Rap, the first of the spoken pieces by his father Lonnie Pops Lynn that Common has used to end several albums.

Common said he called the album Resurrection because in many ways he felt dead to some people after his first album went largely unnoticed. A poster of John Coltrane's Blue Train hung on his wall during the sessions. Pitchfork's Tal Rosenberg singled out Nuthin' to Do as the album's most powerful moment and said No I.D. chose samples for their texture as much as their notes. Touré of Rolling Stone placed it beside Illmatic, Enter the Wu-Tang and Ready to Die among the best recent hardcore albums. It reached 179 on the Billboard 200, and by Pitchfork's 2025 account had sold fewer than 250,000 copies. In 1998 The Source picked it for its 100 Best Hip Hop Albums.