Five bucks says longtime rap fans got chills when they first heard Common and Pete Rock were working on a project. Chicago’s most poetic OG connecting with the revered Mt. Vernon hero behind “They Reminisce Over You”? C’mon, that’s an event. And maybe those chills became a bit more pronounced when the same fans heard “Wise Up,” the first volley from the ‘The Auditorium Vol. 1.’ The track and its very cool video arrived with an old school gravitas driven by a modern sense of kinetics. Turns out ‘The Auditorium Vol 1.’ glows with a classic aura from start to finish. Boom bap echoes with a 2024 sheen. We brought our cameras to the very place where they cut the new project: the famed Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, where it was quickly apparent that the legends were in their element, chopping it about everything from the ins and outs of their partnership to the state of “real rap.” Interwoven ctrl performances elevate the experience to the next level, too. This one is for all you hip-hop heads out there.