Common's uncommon approach to hip-hop elevates 'Finding Forever'
Lonnie Rashid Lynn, more famously known as the Chicago hip-hop artist Common, is sitting in the back seat of a limousine cruising to O’Hare International Airport. In the next hour, he will take off his shirt and switch jobs.
“By the time I finish this interview,” he says with a smile, “I’m gonna change my clothes and get into my zone.”
When the ride ends, Common as promised has shed his shirt, his paisley tie and his day job as a rapper. In their place is a fresh outfit that he will wear to his next place of employment: a Hollywood movie set. After cramming two days of promotion for his forthcoming album, “Finding Forever” (G.O.O.D. Music/Geffen), into one marathon 20-hour stretch, he is zipping off to Los Angeles to act in what will be his third movie role of the year, alongside Forest Whitaker and Keanu Reaves in “The Night Watchman.” It follows parts in “American Gangster,” with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, and “Wanted,” with Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. Last year, he made his Hollywood debut with a respectable turn as an assassin in “Smoking Aces,” with Ben Affleck and Andy Garcia.
With a series of remarkably consistent albums since 1992 that have sold 2.6 million copies, two children’s books and a third on the way, roles in four Hollywood movies, a line of designer hats, and high-profile TV ads for a clothing chain and gym shoes, Common has become a self-contained multimedia company. Where many rap careers flame out as quickly as they explode, Common has benefited from a slow, steady climb. He’s now not only one of the most respected voices in hip-hop, but also one of the most marketable.
“In 2007, it’s about multi-impressions,” says Tim Reid, product manager at Common’s Geffen label. “He’s still cool and relevant, and corporate America is saying this guy is a solid brand. I wish all my artists had different avenues like he has to get their image out there. His lifestyle and brand have been solidified to the point where he has a core audience that will always buy his records, and that core is expanding each time he does something new, like a movie or a Gap ad.”
Branding is rarely synonymous with virtues such as integrity and artistry. But Common has become that rarest of pop success stories: a mainstream hip-hop artist who projects a mature, compassionate image and thrives on thoughtful, soul-fired albums designed for repeated listening rather than short-lived hit singles.
“He’s selling nearly a million albums at a time without a lot of radio airplay,” Reid says. “He’s an anomaly who defies the conventional success route. You can’t name too many artists to scan that many [album] sales without hit singles.”
With producer Kanye West, a multimillion-selling recording artist who also grew up on the South Side, Common has focused on making concise, cohesive albums in the tradition of the ‘60s and ‘70s soul and jazz greats he grew up admiring. The duo’s sound is a blend of Common’s inventive lyricism; West’s savvy feel for soulful break beats and catchy hooks; and a tight circle of jazz-funk improvisers, including keyboardists James Poysner and Omar Edwards, bassist Derek Hodge and drummer Kareem Riggins.
At his best, Common echoes the socially conscious themes of Chicago soul master Curtis Mayfield, in the way he speaks about the black working class, a population that is rarely addressed in popular entertainment. On several of the new album’s best songs, including “Black Maybe” and “The People,” he speaks directly to the African-American community, much in the way Mayfield once did, and suggests that it must first heal and unify itself before it can face its outside oppressors. It’s not a new message, but it’s one rarely heard in the mainstream where songs about bling rule.
“I feel as a black man, with so much going on in our community and being put down so much, we need spiritual encouragement,” Common says. “Sometimes children don’t get enough encouragement to live a healthy lifestyle.”
When talking to Common, it sometimes feels like he’s running for office rather than discussing an album. He’s a fan of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, but he says politics isn’t for him. “I don’t think I’d do well strictly in a political structure,” he says. But in the next sentence he acknowledges, “I may be a politician some day.”
“This from a person who didn’t even vote at one time,” Common says. “And now I vote and I say, ‘We all need to vote.’ That’s what happens when you get someone like Bush in office.”
Common’s thoughtfulness and sincerity sometimes could spill over into dully earnest music-making. But the music rarely feels ponderous. It has an airy, melodic lilt, and Common’s clever turns of phrase and increasingly developed humor keep the entertainment quotient high.
“They said I was sharp, [but] at the Grammys they tried to India.Arie me,” he raps on “The People,” addressing his 0-for-5 day at the Grammy Awards in 2006, much in the way singer India.Arie was shut out despite garnering seven nominations in 2002.
“I thought I might get two,” Common says sheepishly about that deflating night at the awards ceremony. “It was definitely humbling.”
That’s a virtue drilled into young Rashid ever since he was young. The rapper, now 35, grew up middle-class on the South Side, the son of one of Chicago’s most respected educators, Mahalia Ann Hines (the principal at John Hope Prep College High School), and former professional basketball player Lonnie Lynn. He’s become the paragon of so-called “conscious” rap, the go-to voice whenever anyone from Oprah to a journalist working on deadline needs a quote or a testimonial about rap as a force for positive social change.
It’s a role Common has occasionally grown weary of playing, but which he embraces with new vigor on “Finding Forever.”
“I am someone who is spiritual and believes in God, but I also go out and drink beer and wine, I make mistakes, I use words that aren’t appropriate for everyone to hear,” he says. “To be put in a box is something you never want to happen as an artist or a human being when you know there’s more to you than what people make out. Yet I think of the conscious artists throughout history, the Bob Marleys, the Marvin Gayes, the KRS-Ones, and those people are remembered forever. That’s the kind of artist I always wanted to be.”
Common finds his place within that tradition through descriptive narratives about everyday people: the desperate social climber in “Drivin’ Me Wild,” the failed dancer in “Misunderstood.” These characters suggest Common has a future as a Hollywood scriptwriter, and he’s taken the first step toward that goal by playing against type in his acting roles.
“Put it this way: In every movie I’ve been in to date, I’ve had a gun,” he says with a laugh.
If that sounds like he’s trading one stereotyped image (the conscious rapper) for another (the angry young black man), Common doesn’t see it that way. On his best records, his characters mean well, but they struggle with their flaws, and sometimes succumb to them. He aims to bring the same three-dimensional humanity to his movie roles.
“I took those roles to have fun, but I also knew I could bring some complexity to it,” he says. “Even in the role of a gangster, there’s a human being there who loves people, cares about his mom, has a family. And maybe these guys are making mistakes, but they’re human beings. And I feel I can bring that out. In ‘Smokin’ Aces,’ even though my character is a killer, he is probably the most noble guy in the room. There are things you can bring to the character to expand it beyond the stereotype. As a watcher of movies, I want to feel like I’m seeing real people in these stories. And that’s what I’m trying to do. It’s not about fitting a stereotype. It’s about showing people that there’s more to the stereotype than they may realize.”
greg@gregkot.com