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 forthcoming ‘The Auditorium Vol. 1.’. Boom bap echoes with a 2024 sheen, the track, and its very cool video, arrive with an old school gravitas driven by a modern sense of kinetics. “We don’t have to reach to make it sound like a throwback,” says Common. “We don’t have to reach to try to make it sound like it’s new and young. We’ve just got to be who we are and do what we love.” As is often the case, the Chicago MC's rhymes push a posi spirit while taking an unflinching look at the culture. No wonder he references being a “sleuth for the truth.” Can’t tell for sure, but it sounds like Rock’s got a sample from ‘The Odd Couple’ TV show theme smoothing out the track's refrain. The collab itself reminds that their individual aesthetics fit quite nicely, and when they came into our studio to share “Dreamin’," you could feel camaraderie driving the action, “from the stellar regions of the soul…”