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Music

Watch Common and The Roots’ Tariq Freestyle Battle on ‘Fallon’

“Snowplow” is a difficult word to incorporate.

Common is a busy man right now. His latest album, Black America Again, dropped back in November, and he's spent the time since seeing out Barack Obama's White House term in the Oval Office and promoting the inevitably brilliant new Keanu Reeves movie John Wick 2, in which he gets to do badass shit for fun. Last night, he took the promotional tour to unruly puppy Jimmy Fallon's Late Night show where he was tasked with freestlying against The Roots' Tariq, incorporating whatever words popped up on the screen in front of him while Questlove held down a beat.

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"Snowplow" causes the Chicagoan some problems—in the heat of the moment, he tries to make it rhyme with "flow" instead of "how"—but it's still mightily impressive. Check it out below.

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