News: Common and West

The annual event, scheduled for Aug. 10-13 at the House of Blues Hotel in downtown Chicago, celebrates urban DJ music, culture, and lifestyle.

The Retreat will highlight a series of music events and seminars, which will be held at the hotel and other venues throughout Chicago.

The country's top DJ coalitions are expected to participate in the event, as well as spotlight key honors Aug. 12 at the 2nd Annual Global Mixx DJ Awards.

The retreat is the latest in a string of accomplishments for Common and West, who will release his Pastelle Clothing line this spring and spend the year in the studio working on new projects from the stable of artists signed to his G.O.O.D. Music record label.

"I'm working on a film right now with New Line. We had a title, but we just switched it," West told AllHipHop.com. "I'm working on it with Stephen Gaghan who wrote Traffic. I'll be kind of like Quentin Tarantino or Spike Lee where I'll be directing, editing, and producing."

West is also prepping the follow-up to his critically acclaimed sophomore album, Late Registration.

"My new album Graduation, I'm not sure when I'm dropping it," West said. "I'm working on it very diligently right now and it's very incredible and very scary to anyone that's not involved with it."

Common is gearing up to begin work on his seventh album, tentatively titled Finding Forever.

The Grammy Award winning lyricist has voiced plans to work with West on the project, as well as a desire to collaborate with Dr. Dre.