Common and Lily Allen are on the cover of this month’s Trace magazine. Expect well-deserved praise for Common’s growth and Finding Forever; I was more interested in this Lily Allen chick.

Kanye West put Common on to her music. The Trace article answers the, who, what, where did she come from questions. Turns out she’s an unknown/unproven ‘Myspace artist’, turned undeniable star.

Lily is past the point of being a rising star. Since posting her music on MySpace in 2005, she conquered UK music charts before moving on to the states. Even before Capitol Records dropped her stateside debut Alright, Still, Entertainment Weekly had awarded the post-punk reggae-infused album a spot in its top 10 list of the “best of 2006.” In February 2007, Alright debuted in the U.S. at number 20 on the Billboard charts.

That same month, Lily performed her hit single “Smile” on NBC’s Saturday Night Live and in May she sang Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” alongside Debbie Harry on the The Today Show. To date, Alright has sold 374,000 copies stateside, and visitors to her MySpace page have played her tracks 13 million times and counting.

Her savvy marketing skills, airy vocals and sly lyrics are a formidable combination. Lily gained substantial attention and online “friends” by posting her music and acerbic blog entries on MySpace. She also created mixtapes that featured music by artists as diverse as Ludacris and Creedence Clearwater Revival along with her own songs.

I mentioned the Common + Kanye + Lily Allen connection once before, but didn’t know her history. I don’t feel so blank after reading this part..

Despite all the buzz, there are still some people who don’t know Lily’s name but recognize her sound. “I heard her on [Driving Me Wild] and for the longest time, I didn’t know who it was,” says Chris Robinson [the director of Common’s ‘Driving Me Wild’ video.]

“And I was like, ‘Yo who is that? That’s a dope voice.’ And then I heard that it was Lily Allen and I was like, ‘Shit, I know her music, I know that song that she did.’”

A little “Drivin Me Wild” to sign this off.