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With almost 20 years in the game, Common has carved out a unique niche for himself: the MC's MC whose stardom has eclipsed his music.

Words: Ben Detrick
Photos: Steven Taylor

ON A SUNNY OCTOBER DAY, COMMON ROLLS UP TO CHICAGO’S WEST LOOP ATHLETIC CLUB TO SHOOT HOOPS. HE LIVES IN LOS ANGELES NOW, BUT HAVING PLAYED POINT GUARD FOR LUTHER SOUTH HIGH SCHOOL, AFTER WORKING AS A BALL BOY FOR THE BULLS IN THE EARLY 1980S, HIS HOMETOWN basketball creds are official. He stretches out, chops it up with a couple old-timers and poses for pictures with beaming employees. Soon Common is playing 21 with the local gym rats. Near the end of the last game, he and several players all have points in the high teens. After snatching a rebound, Common evades a defender, bounces left and fl oats a 15-foot jumper from the baseline. Game.

Here’s the firsthand scouting report on Common: He’s not a highflier. He doesn’t take acrobatic shots with perilous degrees of diffi culty. But at six feet tall and equipped with the muscle density needed to play Hollywood bodyguards, he’s bigger and quicker and stronger than expected. When he has the rock, he jab steps and feints until he gets an open look at the basket. On defense, he crouches low, in the defensive stance of someone who never learned the slippery shortcuts of laziness. In short, he’s a worker. Famed basketball coach John Wooden once said that sports are not for building character—that instead, they reveal it. In the case of Common, a 39-year-old rapper who has built himself into a cross-platform entertainer and kingpin of corporate endorsements, it’s impossible not to see truth in the adage.

HIP-HOP HAS A ZILLION RAGS-TO-RICHES narratives, but Common’s might be the most unusual. During a 19-year career that began in 1992 with his largely ignored debut, Can I Borrow a Dollar?, he has never had a single crack the Billboard Top 40 chart. Of the eight albums he’s released on major labels, none has been certifi ed platinum. As an actor, he has not delivered the type of breakthrough performance that launched fellow rappers Will Smith and Ice Cube to cinematic stardom. Yet somehow Common enjoys every trapping of superstardom. According to Forbes, he made $27 million during the past three years. He’s a spokesman for corporations and international brands. He draws appreciative handshakes from men and nervous giggles from women when he ventures out in public. He has even dated Serena Williams, the pinup girl for physically imposing perfection. In December, Common will release The Dreamer, The Believer into the weird, nebulous space between music, film and corporate marketing. It’s his ninth album, a numeric indicator of a long slog through which few artists are able to carry the hearts and minds of the public. His most recent work—2007’s Finding Forever and 2008’s Universal Mind Control—has been more of a stagger than a victory lap. There was some quality material, but the former thinly retraced the boom-bap blueprint of 2005’s Be, and the latter delved awkwardly into electronic experimentation. At times, especially with Common’s growing focus on acting (his latest project, a series on AMC called Hell on Wheels, debuted in November), rapping has seemed to be his second job.

This time, he promises a rejuvenated performance. The Dreamer, The Believer is produced entirely by Chicago stalwart No I.D., one of Common’s original collaborators from nearly two decades ago. Maybe it’s the time-capsule spirit that makes him so enthusiastic. “I actually think this album is one of the greatest pieces of music I’ve ever been a part of,” Common says. “I think that I was able to open a chamber and fi nd something in me that I hadn’t done in a minute. As much as I want to be one of the greatest actors ever in the world and be the new star in films and television, I really, in my soul, love rapping and MCing.”

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STILL WEARING GYM CLOTHES, Common slouches in a chair in a 16th-fl oor suite at Public, a posh Ian Schrager hotel in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. His quarters are pristine, blinding white: white curtains, white furniture, white candles, white orchids, white walls. It feels like heaven’s waiting room, with three green apples on the coffee table serving as a fi nal test of
temptation. “Ask me anything,” he says. “I want the article to be interesting.”

In a genre where youthful rebelliousness trumps just about every other suit, Common knows that he doesn’t have the edgiest reputation. Too many kufis, romantic records and Nag Champa sticks for that. He wants people to know that he drinks, parties and even, on occasion, might wind up watching quivering female flesh at a gentleman’s club. “I think some of the stigma of me being a conscious guy and not enjoying myself has fallen off a little bit,” he says. “I ain’t out all the time, but I have a little fun, and I talk shit a little bit. It ain’t in there like I’m reading a book and trying to philosophize.”

As an example, he describes a boozy birthday dinner for Nas held in September at Catch, a new restaurant in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. He, Nas, Jay-Z and Steve Stoute sat together at a table, drinking too much wine and swapping industry war stories. “It felt like we had the godfathers,” Common says. His seat at this Apalachin meeting may seem unlikely, but he is indisputably a made man. Once a nasally Midwestern kid, he segued from underground battle rapper to neo-soul moralizer to his current role of dignifi ed adultcontemporary musician. He’s proud of this legacy. “No matter what, me wearing crocheted pants or doing love songs, nobody could ever come to me and say I ain’t a MC. At this point, I feel like I’m one of the greatest to ever do it. I’ll go against anybody when it come to MCing… I grew up watching Muhammad Ali. When I get on the mic, I’m the greatest.”

Still, Common is a refugee from a more tangible, predigital era. He’s never owned a computer, and he paws helplessly at the surface of his new iPad like a kitten at a mirror. When asked what contemporary rap he listens to, he doesn’t have a long list. “Kanye.” There’s a pause, then he adds Jay-Z and Lil Wayne. In 2012, the man adored among purists for 1994’s “I Used to Love H.E.R.” mostly listens to rappers your mother has heard of. When members of Harlem’s new ASAP collective recently approached Common in Barneys department store in New York, he had no clue who they were. “I definitely will acknowledge I’m not staying up on everything that’s going on,” he says, citing jazz and rock as genres of music he also enjoys. “We need artists like J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar, who really appreciate hip-hop. I actually like some of Rick Ross’s stuff , as well. His music is fun to me. I could hear a Waka Flocka song in the club and appreciate that it’s got everybody on 30,000 charged up. But usually I breeze through. I’m not seeking it out.”

Common may not pay attention to the fringes of hip-hop like he once did, but his interests outside the genre have raised his profile within it. “Once he became an actor, the commercial product really developed in a way,” says No I.D., whose basement studio was a crucible for both Common and Kanye. “Now he could really be a star.” No I.D. believes hip-hop classicism is so deeply embedded in Common’s DNA that total compromise is impossible. “Even when he tried to sell out, he don’t sell out,” he says. “Even when he try to make a hit record, he put the break dancing in it or something artistic. He always has been an ambassador for honorable skill sets.”

Many rappers roll with a cadre of goons and weed carriers. Common’s entourage looks more like the cast of a BET reality show about making it in Hollywood. He travels with his longtime manager, some 20-something dudes who dress like The Cool Kids and several women. While cruising through downtown Chicago in an SUV, his assistant, a slender woman wearing leopard-print leggings, a belt with a giant Louis Vuitton buckle and turquoise glasses, extols the virtues of healthy eating. “Raw food is the business!” she says. Another woman, with knee-high boots and gold earrings the size of Hershey’s chocolate bars, chimes in by describing how to soak almonds for homemade cereal. They appear to make most of the logistical and moment-tomoment decisions. “I love female energy around,” Common says. “It adds a comfort to certain situations. It ain’t have to be anything sexual. The women that are around me, they hold positions, they work.”

Common has more-complicated interactions with women than most rap artists. For starters, they compose a significant percentage of his fan base. With chiseled features, a soothing voice and a positive image, he is something of a boyfriend shirt: comfortable and reassuring, masculine but nonthreatening. He played the lead in Just Wright, a 2010 romantic comedy with Queen Latifah. This has become a familiar position for an artist whose first album included “Heidi Ho,” a song with lines like, “Your booty black is so undespicable/You squaw pie, tack-haired muthafuckin’ jiggaboo.”

Common’s real-life romantic history includes both Serena Williams and Erykah Badu—both of whom are more famous than he is. In his recent autobiography, One Day It’ll All Make Sense, Common described being dumped over the phone by Badu, a woman he calls his “first love” and “first heartbreak.” After the book came out, she texted him, unhappy that he had been so frank. “She was like, ‘Man, you telling all types of stories!’ ” Common says. “When you reveal certain things, you don’t know it’s going to affect people like that. That’s why I don’t talk too much when I’m in a relationship… Those aspects of my life, I like to keep in a sacred and respectable place.”

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Beginning in 2008, when Common began dating Williams, the voluptuous tennis star who appeared in the 2003 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, his love life came under new scrutiny. He barked at paparazzi in London and found himself the recipient of uncomfortable praise at home. “It was funny to hear some of the things, like, ‘Dawg, you got Serena? You came up!’ ” he says. “You just know that dudes have definitely lusted after Serena. Even my homies was like, ‘I gotta take down that picture of Serena now.’ ”

He and Williams broke up in 2010, citing the difficulty of synchronizing busy schedules. (The two have been spotted together lately, however.) But vestigial remnants of Common’s relationships can always be found in his music—songs such as “The Light,” “Come Close” and a track on the new album called “Loved & I Lost.” “I’ll put it this way,” he says of his inspiration. “A lot of it is about the people you think they about.”

AFTER THE WARM-UP WITH hardwood amateurs, Common is scheduled to appear at a promotional event for Adidas that will include a matchup against hometown hero Derrick Rose, the All-Star point guard for the Bulls and the NBA’s reigning MVP. By mid-afternoon, the gym at the James R. Jordan Boys & Girls Club is filled with restless teenagers and earpiece-wearing sneaker-company employees who scramble around like an advance team for the president. Common goes scoreless in a three-on-three game, and Rose drains a fall-away over him for the game winner. Afterward, the two share a moment in a cafeteria being used as a makeshift VIP area. Common asks Rose if he’s interested in doing a drop for his album, a brief sound bite about following your dreams. “You know me,” Rose says. “I’ll do whatever, dawg. Just to see someone from Chicago doing movies—that’s the shit that inspire me.”

Common is accustomed to working with corporate sponsors. Over his career, he has partnered with companies and products such as Coca-Cola, Gap, Diesel, AMP Energy, Microsoft Zune, Starbucks, Lincoln, NBA 2K8 and BlackBerry. It’s a delicious turn of fate that Common, who built his personal brand on being conscious, spiritual, intelligent and authentic, has become such a magnificent pitchman. “Even when I was an underground rapper, I never wanted to only reach a certain crowd,” Common says of his willingness to trade his image for financial gain and notoriety. “Being able to team up with Diesel or Apple or AT&T, that’s another step toward my career progress. Selling out, for me, would be if I ethically don’t believe in something and endorse it just for money.” He says he would not endorse a liquor company, cigarettes or the U.S. military. Fast food? “It depends on what it is,” he says. “If it was something I felt wasn’t detrimental.”

Considering Common’s mainstream success and family friendly persona, it was particularly puzzling when Republicans went as bat-shit insane as they did after he was invited to read poetry at the White House in May. Honing in on the lyrics from “A Song for Assata,” off 2000’s Like Water for Chocolate, frothing Fox broadcasters called him “vile.” Sarah Palin accused him of “glorifying cop killing.” Common, who was filming the indie film L.U.V. in Baltimore at the time, enjoyed the furor. “I was kinda enthused,” he says. “I was like, ‘Dang, they really giving me some publicity that I never would have gotten!’ I was very much pleased that this controversy was happening surrounding some lyrics that I had written about police brutality and a political prisoner.”

You can understand his happiness. Just for that briefmoment, the good guy had almost, if only to frenzied right-wing idiots, become the bad boy again.

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