Point One: Imagine going to see Roberta Flack, The Ohio players, or, Donny Hathaway in concert and they sounded like shit. That will take away from they overall presence as muscians. Common voice does has the tendency to sound atrocious. Delivery is indeed important because the voice is an instrument. Black Thought bring it correct all the time. His voice is smoother than a velvet shirt that common would wear.

Point Two: Black Thought is in a group called the Roots. I repeat a GROUP. The subject matters that they write about probaly derives through collective agreements. Black Thought rhymes are structured to go along with the hook. The Hypnotic, do you really thing common can bring it to lady the way black did it.

Point Three: Lyrically, I don't even thing it's right to mention common and black thought in the same sentence. Uni-verse at war says it all. That song was design as a straight lyrical battle words usage beyond human type style song. Common was super sub level on that song. Common also was ripped by cannibus.

Point Four: Personality, how can anyone say tariq does'nt have a personality. Personality can be expressed through the spoken word. Just because you dress a certain way does'nt mean you're so mentally vivid. Since common started dressing the way he do it seems like everyone been seeing him as this unhuman creature, the same creature that had beef with ice cube and puffy. How deep is that. But at the same time people see hims as some type of angel. OR the savior to hip hop.

Point Five: Black Thought never came weak. I'm an emcee and conniosuer of music. Black Thought verse on Pete Rock album was ill. It wasn't his best, but it still was the hottest verse on the album. Common came wack many times concept and lyrically.

It's simple Black Thought is light year above Common. Personally I think common sounds better over the adat, MPC, sp1200, beats. He has not yet proven to be an emcees that can switch his rhyming style over live music like BT. I think Andre from the kast is better than common, talib kweli is better, and mos def is better.