Tobacco Road is the second album from Seattle-based hip-hop duo Common Market

Common Market (band)

Common Market is a hip hop duo based in Seattle, Washington with members RA Scion and DJ/Producer Sabzi. The two members were individually active hip hop artists in the Pacific Northwest since 2002, but collectively combined their talents in 2005 to form Common Market.Sabzi started his career as...

. It was released on September 9, 2008 via Massline Media. The album's title is a reference to the tobacco-producing

Tobacco Road

Tobacco Road refers to the tobacco-producing area of North Carolina and is often used when referring to sports played among rival North Carolina universities...

 region of North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

.

The album was close to completion in September 2007, but for reasons unrevealed, the album fell apart and the duo lost 15 weeks worth of work. However, a friend of the group pulled some strings and managed to get them some studio time at London Bridge Studios in Shoreline, WA. Five days later, a second cut of the album was complete.

In an October 2007 interview on Seattle radio station 107.7 The End, the duo joked that it is scheduled for release "on your mom's 50th birthday." They later confirmed that it was due in early 2008. However, the duo had problems securing distribution, despite interest from several of the labels they shopped it to. Instead, they took a similar approach to the release of their self-titled debut, opting to take out a $3,500 loan to manufacture the album and distribute it through locally-owned Massline Media.

In the interim, they released the Black Patch War

Black Patch War (album)

Black Patch War is an EP from Seattle-based hip-hop duo, Common Market. It is the group's second release. The title is a reference to the American Black Patch Tobacco Wars of the early 20th century, a continuation of the title of the group's forthcoming full-length album, Tobacco Road which takes...

EP. With little promotion, the EP caught many fans, friends of the band, and even RA Scion's mother by surprise. According to RA Scion, the EP was meant to represent "the essence of compromise," meaning they would continue shopping Tobacco Road around on the condition that they would release new material in May.

On June 27, 2008, music website Spin.com released an official track listing, release date, and free mp3

MP3

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

 download of the title track.

Track listing

1. "Service" (1:25)
2. "Trouble Is" (3:21)
3. "Gol'Dust" (3:43)
4. "Slow Cure" (4:07)
5. "Back Home (The Return)" (3:03)
6. "40 Furrows" (1:57)
7. "House" (3:40)
8. "Winter Takes All" (3:19)
9. "Weather Vane" (5:20)
10. "40 Acres" (2:37)
11. "Spits" (instrumental) (2:05)
12. "Nina Sing" (feat. Funklove) (3:09)
13. "Certitude" (feat. Chev) (2:51)
14. "Crucible" (feat. Geologic of Blue Scholars
    Blue Scholars
    Blue Scholars is a hip hop duo based in Seattle, Washington, created in 2002 while the members, DJ Sabzi and MC Geologic, were students at the University of Washington....
    
    ) (2:51)
15. "40 Thieves" (3:08)
16. "Nothin' At All" (5:28)
17. "Swell" (3:48)
18. "Tobacco Road" (4:36)