The Roots & Common made the final stop on their Hennessy Artistry tour in New York City at Terminal 5 last week.  With special guests joining them in each city of the tour, the crowd knew we were in for something special being in the Mecca of hip-hop.  Among the many surprise guests, legendary emcees were in the house as Q-Tip joined The Roots on stage, followed by Queen Latifah to close out the show.  Here’s some fantastic soundboard audio of these moments.

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The Roots and Common continue their limited nationwide, Hennessy Artisrty tour and recently stopped by The Velvet Room in Atlanta.  While much of the ATL hype was centered around the Goodie Mobb reunion show, which was going on the same night across town, The Roots and Common put on hell of a show themselves that was not to be missed.  Boyz II Men made a rare appearance, backed by their old high school classmates, The Roots, as did Amerie and Anjulie.  Check out soundboard audio of Boyz II Men’s brief set as well as some highlights of Amerie and Common’s performances with The Legendary.

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Common hosted a benefit concert in Los Angeles this weekend with an all-star line up featuring tons of incredible special guests.  This was like an unofficial sequel to Dave Chappelle’s Block Party as the line-up of artists was boasted by Common, The Roots, De La Soul, Ludacris, Nas, Kanye West, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, MF Doom, Queen Latifah, Heavy D and more.  If that wasn’t good enough, a mixture of The Roots and Common’s band backed everyone throughout the night.  Our newest addition to the staff, AudioMuse, was in the building to record the event exclusively for ATWL.  You’ll be hearing a lot more from her in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, check out more than a dozen of our exclusive recordings from this incredible event, as well as some video footage from the evening.

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Prince did a string of great shows at the O2 Arena back in the summer of 2007, and at one of the concerts, Common made a surprise appearance, joining His Royal Badness on stage to kick a freestyle.  An awesome, albeit unexpected performance.

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Blackstar headlined the 2007 Black August festival, and with Common being one of the acts on the bill, it would be a crime if the trio didnt perform Respiration.  So of course they did and it was pretty dope if I do say so myself.  Check it out…. and yes, you do hear the “Move Somethin” horns for a brief sec… DJ fucked up at the best moment of the night… go figure.

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Common toured with Q-Tip back in ‘07 and at the NYC date at Nokia Theater, KRS One joined both on stage for a freestyle session.  As you can imagine, it was pretty crazy to see the three trading verses off the dome together.  Whether or not Common and Q-Tip’s new group, The Standard, actually release an album waits to be seen.  Hit the jump for the audio and video.

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