Common’s The Dreamer/The Believer has been one of the most welcome surprises of late 2011 — a real “return to form,” false promises of such things be damned. It’s easily his strongest set of songs since 2005’s winning Be and harkens back to his earlier classics. Single “Ghetto Dreams” pairs Common with Nas — a similarly revered artist who’s found it difficult to remain relevant — for an old-school hip-hop joint that finds the two rap veterans doing what they do best, trading skilled verses that eschew showiness for depth. Producer and co-writer No I.D. (Kanye West’s production mentor) provides the perfect accompaniment for Common rooted firmly in no-frills classic hip-hop, all soul samples and record scratches, but livens things up with unexpected beat breaks in “Raw (How You Like It)” and makes an ELO sample into stuttering, swirling psych-hop in “Blue Sky.” For his part, Common sounds raw and enlivened, rid of the need to either outdo his younger contemporaries or live up to some “conscious hip-hop” ideal. He’s doing his thing, and it sounds as great as you’d hope.