The Light

The second single from Like Water for Chocolate was produced by Jay Dee, with James Poyser on keyboards. It samples Bobby Caldwell's Open Your Eyes and the drums of You're Gettin' a Little Too Smart by the Detroit Emeralds. It is framed as a love letter, and in 2012 Common acknowledged that it was about Erykah Badu, his girlfriend at the time. In 2024 he told Drink Champs that the digga-da, digga-da ad lib was a placeholder that he could not improve on and left in. Nzingha Stewart directed the video, which features Common and Badu.

It was the first Common single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 44, and it reached 12 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart and 13 on the Hot Rap Singles chart. It was nominated for the Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance in 2001, and Pitchfork put it at 268 on its list of the top 500 songs of the 2000s. A seven-minute live version with Badu and Bilal appears on the soundtrack of Dave Chappelle's Block Party. Other versions include a remix with Badu released by Motown for the Bamboozled soundtrack, and The Light '08 (It's Love) with Just Blaze and Marsha Ambrosius, made for a Smirnoff campaign.