Like Water for Chocolate Tracklist
Like Water For Chocolate is the 4th album by Common, released on March 28th 2000 via MCA Records.
The LP is named after Spanish romance novel Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, a phrase which originally meant for someone to reach the peak of their anger. However, as he told MTV, Com’s take on it is more interpersonal, connected to his personality and character:
I first saw the title and thought that its was real interesting, and I was like, ‘Man, this is different.’ It made me think, ‘What does it mean?’. And it was appealing to me enough to dig into a meaning for it. So, I used “Like Water For Chocolate” to represent the water side in me, which is a Pisces, and the chocolate represents the soul, the blackness in the music.
Across the project, Common discusses a wide range of topics — mainly ghetto oriented — from pimping to Black Panther tributes. The album also boasts his most successful single, “The Light”, a rare instance of a non-misogynistic romance song in hip hop. It also includes the first and best work of the Soulquarians, a neo soul-hip hop collective including J Dilla, Questlove, What You Live For and D'Angelo.
LWFC is one of Common’s most acclaimed LPs, alongside Resurrection and Be, with the likes of Pitchfork’s “Top 200 Albums of the 2000s”. The album has received a Gold certification by the RIAA, and remains widely respected across the genre.
“Like Water for Chocolate” Q&A
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What did Common say about this album?
The first time I felt like I had a genuine grasp of what happiness is was when I created this album, Like Water For Chocolate. I felt like I was really being true to who I was and I accomplished something that I really had a vision for and had set my mind to. I wasn’t being boxed in by any of the things that I’d previously grown up around and I felt free to be me. And I saw the results in the music that I was creating and that music helped go on to change my life in many ways, because it created a song called “The Light”, which went on to be one of the biggest records I’ve ever done.
— In GQ, 2019
