![]() “My ambition initially was driven by wanting to be seen, wanting to be heard – I wanted to be the dopest. “I named the album Resurrection because I felt like I was coming back from the dead,” he says, with a deep belly laugh. “ socially conscious, verbally dexterous and seemingly wise beyond his years.” Clearly, his underwhelming experiences with his first album affected him. It was “as if Common had gone from playing dozens on the corner to standing in as an elder statesman”, declared one critic. Two years later, he came back with a critically acclaimed second album, Resurrection. He read the Bible and the Qur’an, listened to jazz and worked on his craft as an MC. “It was ‘bros before hoes’ – stuff you’re repeating from your homies when you’re not really thinking for yourself yet.”Īfter the album failed to achieve commercial success, he embarked on a journey of personal and spiritual growth. “I definitely put a lot of that down to youth,” Common explains, sounding a bit embarrassed. It depicted a less mature person, particularly on the misogynist track Heidi Hoe. He’s become known for writing conscious rap, but his debut album, Can I Borrow a Dollar, came out in an era when gangsta rap was the genre’s driving force. View image in fullscreen Common performing in Austin in August. One of the solutions to the violence that goes on in the inner city is providing young people with something feel valued.” “The ultimate thing was that, man, I had something to aspire to. ![]() Although the drugs and gangs that plagued the neighbourhood were close by, “it wasn’t like every day we were walking around dodging bullets,” Common explains in a laid-back drawl. There he met Mr Brown, a teacher who “took a lot of pride in what it was to be a black man”. His parents split when he was a baby, but he maintained regular contact with his father, and his grandmother walked him to school. His new album, Let Love, his 12th, is full of lush, moving jazz and soul-tinged odes to life, hip-hop, his mother, his 22-year-old daughter, his hope for a future romantic relationship and to God.Ĭommon, 47, speaks powerfully about his childhood, growing up on Chicago’s notorious South Side. “My mother’s love was the first thing I pretty much knew,” he says as we drive to the soundcheck for a gig. The rapper, who is also an activist and Emmy-winning actor, has a preoccupation with the subject, which he believes should be the driving force behind personal and social change. It’s apt that Common and I meet in Philadelphia, the US city of brotherly love.
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