Common subdues a couple of convenience store robbers with the help of Vince Staples in his new video for “Hercules.” The track, which features Swizz Beatz, appears on Common’s forthcoming album, Let Love, which will be released on August 30th via Loma Vista Recordings.
In the new clip, Staples portrays a convenience store worker. It opens on a slow day where he’s seen alone, sitting behind the counter, sweeping, flipping through a magazine and grooming his hair. Soon a female customer comes in, followed by Common. As the rapper and the customer roam the aisles, the customer steals a few items as Common raps about the meaning of freedom and the forces that work against truly being free.
“My dreams found wings on the back of the struggle/Pull a back muscle, back to the hustle,” he raps into his cell phone buoyed by Swizz Beatz soulful backing vocals as he strolls the aisles. “Rap for the duffle and the black couples/That lay troubles down and let love do, it’s diligence/I’m militant for villages, the villainous they pillage us/But will it with the will in us?”
A pair of armed robbers enters the store and demand money from Staples, but Common sneaks up on them and together with Staples and the female customer, they thwart the burglars in their tracks.
The song follows Common’s previously released single, “Her Love” featuring Daniel Caesar, with both songs set for Let Love. In a statement, Common said the album was inspired by his memoir, Let Love Have the Last Word.
“It forced me to go deeper and because I opened up about so many things in the book, I was charged to go to raw, personal and spiritual places in the music. Production-wise, I knew that the music had to have depth, soul and dimension to it,” he explained. “I wanted the musicianship and the spirit of what live music brings, but it also had to have something raw and basement about it.”
