Common App
Leana Eckes
Lonnie Rashid Lynn[6][7][8] (born March 13, 1972), known professionally as Common (formerly known as Common Sense), is an American rapper and actor from Chicago, Illinois. He is the recipient of three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award. At 20, he first signed with the independent label Relativity Records to release his debut studio album Can I Borrow a Dollar? (1992), which was met with critical acclaim along with its follow-ups, Resurrection (1994) and One Day It'll All Make Sense (1997). He maintained an underground following into the late 1990s, and achieved mainstream success through his work with the Black music collective, Soulquarians.[9]
After attaining a major label record deal, he released his fourth and fifth albums, Like Water for Chocolate (2000) and Electric Circus (2002) to continued acclaim and modest commercial response.[10] His guest performance on fellow Soulquarian, Erykah Badu's 2003 single, "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" won Best R&B Song at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards.[11] He signed with fellow Chicago rapper Kanye West's record label GOOD Music, in a joint venture with Geffen Records to release his sixth album Be (2005), which was met with both critical and commercial success and yielded a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album. His seventh album, Finding Forever (2007) saw further success and became his first to debut atop the Billboard 200, while a song from the album, "Southside" (featuring Kanye West) won Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. He released his eighth album, Universal Mind Control (2008) to mixed critical reception before departing GOOD and launching his own label imprint, Think Common Entertainment in 2011. Entering a joint venture with Warner Bros. Records, he released The Dreamer/The Believer (2011); and through No I.D.'s ARTium Recordings, an imprint of Def Jam Recordings, he released Nobody's Smiling (2014). Both albums were met with critical praise and further discussed social issues in Black America; his eleventh album, Black America Again (2016) saw widespread critical acclaim and served as his final release on a major label.[12][13]
Common was born on March 13, 1972, at the Chicago Osteopathic Hospital in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He is the son of educator and former principal of John Hope College Preparatory High School, Mahalia Ann Hines, and former ABA basketball player turned youth counselor Lonnie Lynn.[15] He was raised in the Calumet Heights neighborhood.[16][17][18][19] Lynn's parents divorced when he was six years old, resulting in his father moving to Denver, Colorado. This left Lynn to be raised by his mother; however, his father remained active in his life, and was able to get him a job with the Chicago Bulls as a teenager. Lynn attended Florida A&M University for two years under a scholarship and majored in business administration.[20]
Lynn began rapping in the late 1980s, while a student at Luther High School South in Chicago, when he, along with two of his friends, formed C.D.R., a rap trio that opened for acts such as N.W.A and Big Daddy Kane.[21] When C.D.R dissolved by 1991, Lynn began a solo career under the stage name of Common Sense. After being featured in the Unsigned Hype column of The Source magazine, he debuted as a solo artist in 1992 with the single "Take It EZ", followed by the album Can I Borrow a Dollar?.
With the 1994 release of Resurrection, Common Sense achieved a much larger degree of critical acclaim which extended beyond the Chicago music scene. The album sold relatively well and received a strong positive reaction among alternative and underground hip hop fans at the time. Resurrection was Common Sense's last album produced almost entirely by his long-time production partner, No I.D., who would later become a mentor to a young Kanye West.
In 1996, Common Sense appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation CD, America Is Dying Slowly (A.I.D.S.), alongside Biz Markie, Wu-Tang Clan, and Fat Joe, among many other prominent hip hop artists. The CD, meant to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic among African American men, was heralded as "a masterpiece" by The Source magazine. He would later also contribute to the Red Hot Organization's Fela Kuti tribute album, Red Hot and Riot in 2002. He collaborated with Djelimady Tounkara on a remake of Kuti's track, "Years of Tears and Sorrow".
The song "I Used to Love H.E.R." from Resurrection ignited a feud with West Coast rap group Westside Connection. The lyrics of the song criticized the path hip hop music was taking, utilizing a metaphor of a woman to convey hip hop[22] and were interpreted by some as directing blame towards the popularity of West Coast gangsta rap. Westside Connection first responded with the 1995 song "Westside Slaughterhouse," with the lyrics "Used to love H.E.R., mad cause I f*cked her". "Westside Slaughterhouse" also mentioned Common Sense by name, prompting the rapper to respond with the scathing Pete Rock-produced attack song "The Bitch in Yoo". Common Sense and Westside Connection continued to insult each other back and forth before finally meeting with Louis Farrakhan and setting aside their dispute. Following the popularity of Resurrection, Common Sense was sued by an Orange County-based reggae band with the same name, and was forced to shorten his moniker to simply Common.[23]
As documented by hip-hop journalist Raquel Cepeda, in the liner notes for the album, this event had a profound spiritual and mental effect on Common and enabled him to grow musically while becoming more responsible as an artist. She writes:
Common addresses family ethics several times on One Day..., and the album sleeve is decorated with old family photos, illustrating the rapper's childhood, as well a quote from 1 Corinthians 13:11, which summarizes the path to manhood:
Following One Day..., Common signed a major label record deal with MCA Records and relocated from Chicago to New York City in 1999. He began recording almost exclusively with a loose collective of musicians and artists (dubbed the "Soulquarians" by central figure Questlove) throughout 1999, and made a few sporadic guest appearances on The Roots' Things Fall Apart, and the Rawkus Records compilation, Soundbombing 2.
With both artists hailing from the Great Lakes region of the United States (Chicago and Detroit, respectively), Common and J Dilla established their chemistry early on. Both became members of the Soulquarians collective, and collaborated on numerous projects together, even placing one song, "Thelonius", on both the Slum Village album Fantastic, Vol. 2, and Common's Like Water for Chocolate. As Dilla's health began to decline from the effects of Lupus Nephritis, he relocated to Los Angeles, and asked Common to make the move with him as a roommate (Dilla would later lose his battle with the rare disease).[24]
This album saw Common exploring themes (musically and lyrically), which were uncommon for a hip-hop record, as he does on the song "Time Travelin' (A Tribute To Fela)"; a homage to Nigerian music legend, and political activist Fela Kuti. The most popular single from the album "The Light" was nominated for a Grammy Award.
In 2002, Common released his fifth album, Electric Circus. The album was highly anticipated and praised by many critics for its ambitious vision. However, it was not as commercially successful as his previous album, Like Water for Chocolate, selling under 300,000 copies. An eclectic album, Electric Circus featured fusions of several genres such as hip hop, pop, rock, electronic, and neo-soul. The album's style tended to divide critics; some praised its ambitious vision while others criticized it for the same reason. Most of the criticism tended to revolve around the album's experimental nature; some felt Common had strayed too far from his previous sound. This was Common's second and last album for MCA, and the label's final release prior to its absorption into Geffen Records.
Around this time, Common appeared as a guest performer on singer and fellow Soulquarian Bilal's Love for Sale album, recording a remake of the 1977 Fela Kuti song "Sorrow, Tears & Blood".[25] Bilal also featured on Electric Circus, the first of many future collaborations with Common.[26]
Following the release of Be in 2005, several mixed-race artists from the UK hip-hop scene took exception to Common's comments about interracial relationships on the song "Real People." Yungun, Doc Brown and Rising Son recorded a track over an instrumental version of "The Corner" named "Dear Common (The Corner Dub)." Common states that he has heard of the track but never actually taken the time to listen to it, and has not retaliated in song.[27]
Common's seventh LP titled Finding Forever was released on July 31, 2007. For this album, he continued his work with Kanye West, as well as other producers such as Will.i.am, Devo Springsteen, Derrick Hodge, and Karriem Riggins, as well as the only J Dilla-produced track, "So Far To Go". The album features guest spots from artists such as Dwele, Bilal, D'Angelo, and UK pop starlet Lily Allen. The first single from the album was "The People" b/w "The Game". West predicted that Finding Forever would win the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.[28] The album was nominated for Best Rap Album, but did not win, losing to West's Graduation; however, Common did win his second Grammy for "Southside," which won the 2008 Grammy for Best Rap Performance by Duo or Group.On July 31, 2007, Common performed a free concert in Santa Monica, California, on the 3rd Street Promenade to promote the release of Finding Forever. Common explained to the audience that the title "Finding Forever" represented his quest to find an eternal place in hip-hop and also his wishes to be an artist for the rest of his life. The album debuted at #1 on the national Billboard 200 charts.
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