Back in 2012, Chicago-born rapper Common voiced his concerns about his hometown’s rising gang violence problem and issued a call for a peace summit in the hope that the city’s rising rap acts like Chief Keef could use music to send a more positive message to local youth. It was a call that wasn’t heeded, and two years later, Keef’s own cousin Big Glo (himself an aspiring rapper) was murdered in the troubled South Side neighborhood of Englewood. This Tuesday, Common drops his 10th album, which covers the spiraling crime in that area of Chicago. Given the grave situation, it’s hardly surprising that he’s called it “Nobody’s Smiling.”
“People are dying,” Common tells The Post, citing a slow recovery from the recession as a primary reason for Chicago’s issues. “I’ve spoken to 16-year-olds who are telling me they need jobs. Poverty, drugs, gang culture, it’s all adding to the problem. You see younger people with guns, too — it’s becoming normal for kids to have them.”
The 42-year-old (born Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr.) has long been regarded as the voice of conscious hip-hop, with a reputation built on albums such as the 1994 classic “Resurrection” and later works like 2005’s “Be.” In 2011, he was even invited by Michelle Obama to read poetry at the White House. But Common, who now lives primarily in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, admits to a sense of guilt for not addressing the horrors in his hometown sooner. “I feel like I neglected this. I feel like I should have done this album earlier than I did.”
He’s making up for it on “Nobody’s Smiling,” which collates his experiences and conversations with the disenfranchised youth of Chicago. On the particularly stark title track, he lays out the lack of opportunity in particularly blunt terms and cites the lack of role models for young black men: “Ain’t no fathers around/Sons of anarchy.”
Common is hoping that his tales and observations on the album bring awareness of the realities of Chicago to the wider world. “I don’t have all the answers, but I have to start conversations because no one else is doing it.”
He also made a point of working with Chicago talent on the album, which features guest spots from Big Sean, Dreezy, and is produced by No I.D. Early rumors even hinted that his old buddy Kanye West might make an appearance, but that never came to pass. Even so, the two remain close, and Common was a guest at the wedding of West and Kim Kardashian in Italy in May.
It can’t be easy being friends with a man who’s become a punching bag for haters, but Common is quick to defend Yeezy. “I’ll be the first person to speak up for ‘Ye,’ he says proudly. “If someone talks about your family or someone you love, you would, too! He’s an inspiration more than anything — especially for people in Chicago. He’s a king there!”
Despite Common’s move to increase the peace, he’s had a personal war of his own to deal with in recent years. In late 2011, a beef with Canadian rapper Drake apparently stemmed from Common taking shots and calling him “soft” in the song “Sweet.” Drake hit back with his verse on “Stay Schemin” but Common then remixed the same song, calling Drake out directly by name as well as referring to him as “Canada Dry.” Common has since admitted that the clash was also partly over tennis ace Serena Williams, who had dated Common on-and-off for years but at the time was linked romantically to Drake.
In the end, the argument was squashed at the Grammys in 2012. “We settled like grown men,” remembers Common. “We talked. I said, ‘If it’s war it’s war, but we’re in this to be successful and to live a better life.’ There was no hoopla, just a conversation.” He and Drake have cleared the air and Common also insists that while he and Williams are no longer close, he still has love for her, too. “We’re still friends and we had a great relationship. I have warmth for her — I’ll probably even go to see her at the US Open.”
The journey to Flushing isn’t too far from his Brooklyn home. “Living [in Fort Greene] is a cultural experience,” he says. “I can hang out with folks from Trinidad or from Europe. You can go to a ‘Do the Right Thing’ anniversary party or a Michael Jackson celebration party and you see lots of beautiful women!”
All that remains is the key question for any Chicago transplant: deep dish or thin crust? “I miss the deep dish for sure, but I can’t eat too much of that!” When it comes to the New York versus Chicago pizza war, all you need is Common sense.