Pitchfork

With seventh studio album Finding Forever set to hit shelves July 31 on Geffen, we caught up with Chicago MC, actor, and driver's cap connoisseur Common to talk about the record.

Relaxed and affable, he also gave us his thoughts on sustaining a career, "American Idol", his appearance in a Gap commercial, and his spirituality.

Pitchfork: Did Kanye produce most of Finding Forever, like he did on Be?

Common: Yeah.

Pitchfork: I heard you're a little more particular with his beats than other people are. How does that work, when you tell him he needs to step it up a little bit?

Common: [laughs] Well, you know, we work in the studio-- he'll be creating the music, and he'll be like, "This beat is gold." And I'll be like, "It's all right." I'm basically honest and don't just accept anything because, you know, Kanye-- or any producer for that matter-- made it. It has to be something I think goes with the vision that I want for my music. It's got to touch me. It's got to feel like some of their best work for me. I've got to say, "This goes along with what I want my music to sound like." You know, that challenge is something that allows Kanye to grow and actually make certain beats that end up on his album. I might be like, "I don't want to use that," and he'll go and use it, and make it a great song too. He's got a song on his album where he talks about "Common passed on this beat." It's just about really getting the music that I feel as an artist is inspiring for me and is what I want to create.

I've got to say, Kanye challenges me too, as an MC. He'll be like, "Man, you can come better on those lyrics than that, man." He'll look at every word [and say], "No, that line could be better." So we challenge each other, but I'm definitely not one to just accept any beat because he made it.

Pitchfork: What kind of stuff makes you revise a lyric? Is it like an image isn't sharp enough? The rhyme isn't tight enough?

Common: Sometimes I could be writing a story, and I may not give enough of the details I would like to or it may not have enough punch. You really want things that you choose to say to have an impact. You want every rhyme to say something; you know that captures their attention. If it isn't capturing the attention, then do something better. You've got to revise it and work on it, you know? I like MCs that when I listen, I'm like, "Damn man, how did he think of that? That's incredible." I go back and I hear new things that the person says, because they're saying so much.

Pitchfork: Do you remember the last line that was like that, a line that you really fixated on, where you were like, "I need to do more stuff like that"?

Common: It was a line in this one song called "Drivin' Me Wild". One line I say is, "Doing all she can for a man and a baby/ driving herself crazy like the astronaut lady." That made me feel good because the song is called "Drivin' Me Wild", and it's about some people who drive themselves wild over doing things. It fit with the subject matter and, lyrically, "driving herself crazy like the astronaut lady" adds humor to it. That made me just feel good, you know? Lines like that, to me, are what hip-hop is all about. Hip-hop has so many dimensions to it. It's clever. It's humorous. It's thoughtful. You know?

Pitchfork: Another thing you bring to the table a lot as an MC is spirituality. Do you have a daily spiritual routine, prayer time or anything like that?

Common: Yeah. Every day, I try to read the Bible. I read the Qur'an. I try to pray a good amount of time per day. The Bible and the Qur'an are my food for the day, and I take time to do that. After reading, even if I just take a minute to pray, I take that time to communicate with God and be alone and talk to God. I think it's very helpful. I'd prescribe it to anybody, whatever way they need to communicate with the Most High, with God, they take their time to do it each day because it's healthy.

Pitchfork: Do you have a favorite story in the Bible or the Qur'an?

Common: One of my favorite stories is in the New Testament when Jesus took two fish and five loaves of bread and fed the people, and they were like, "How did he pull it off with two fish and five loaves?" And Jesus was like, "Man, you don't understand. I can do a lot. I'm powerful." That made me think. [People think] everything is so literal in the Bible. I don't think everything is so literal, [but] even if Jesus didn't do that literally, it reminds me of how powerful we can be, how powerful we are in our minds. We can feed the people. I love the fact that Jesus thinking that powerful and that great was able to feed the people with fish, and he accomplished it. I really like that.

[Another] one of my favorites is when Jesus, in the New Testament, when some of the Pharisees asked, "Why are you hanging with the prostitutes and the trash collectors?" and he was like, "Man, it's the sick that need the healing, not the well. It's the sick that need the physicians." It's saying if you've got knowledge or wisdom or something, the scholars or those that are already converted need to be in the streets among the people that need to hear that information, you know?

Pitchfork: It sounds a little bit like the inspiration for "The People", the first single from your album.

Common: That's totally-- that's like, sometimes, I don't even know. When you just said that it made me realize that is the inspiration behind it. It just comes naturally when I keep working at being a good person and working at the spirituality. It just comes naturally and fits in with my everyday life. Yeah, that is the inspiration. What "The People" is about is taking that message to everyday people in all walks of life and just giving them that uplift and encouragement.

Pitchfork: One thing that struck me about the first two tracks from this record that have leaked-- "The People" and "The Game"-- comes from a line in "The Game" where you say you've "never kissed the ass of the masses." How do you differentiate between "the people" and "the masses"? The commercial seems to be fighting the creative in a lot of your music, and I'm wondering how you reconcile those two things.

Common: I think when I talk about "the people," [I'm talking about] people in the struggle, everyday people who live the life and are trying to get better. They're not part of an entertainment industry thing. When I'm talking about "the people," I'm talking about people that may be working for the CTA, which is the Chicago Transit Authority, or it could be a teacher, or it could be that dude who's living with his grandmother and selling dope on the side. It could be a doctor. "The people" are just everyday people, you know, the people that God created. God created us all, yes, but the people who work in the everyday household and the everyday struggle, they're not really the followers of what everybody else wants and what everybody else does. They're not a part of the upper echelon mentality.

[When] I'm talking about "the masses," I'm talking about those people that don't think for themselves at all. "The masses" are a reflection of corporations, of corporate America. Corporate America will monopolize something and say, "This needs to sound like this. We'll only play this type of music that has this type of feel to it." You know, "We're only gonna play videos and movies that are like this," the "American Idol"s of the world, you know? I ain't knocking people that watch "American Idol"; my mama watches it, [but] it's a mentality of people that just follow whatever.

Pitchfork: How would you respond to someone who lumps you in with that mentality because of the Gap commercial you did?

Common: I mean, I went up there and got to be who I was. You didn't see me change who I was for Gap. My message has never been to not reach multitudes of people, but I'm not going to kiss ass to get to that. I'm not going to change who I am to be that. I'm not going to sit up and say, "Because this artist is popular right now, let me follow what they're doing to give me a chance to sell more records and reach more people." Nah, I want to reach people by being creative and doing the things I love to do and making music that I feel is heartfelt. If I can do that for the largest platform, I will, as long as I can stay true to who I am, and Gap allowed me to be who I was going to be. Like, hey, I'm putting out a really positive message on the Gap commercial, for the holidays, and it allowed me to be exposed to more people. And in return, I also have to hold on to my career and establish myself with new audiences, and I want that, for me and for other artists who also have something to say. Man, I want Mos Def to be heard, and Talib Kweli and, you know, Dead Prez. I want them to be popular. I ain't mad if they are.

Pitchfork: Where do you see the future of hip-hop going? Since Nas came out with his last record, everyone seems to have a take on whether or not hip-hop is dead or how it's still alive. Do you think it's alive? Where do you think it's going to go in the future?

Common: I think hip-hop is such a powerful instrument, and I think it's alive and it's going to be here. It may not be as truthful or creative or have as much life as it had in the mid-90s or '88. It's alive in ways that are allowing it to be heard across the universe, across the world. When you do hear cats putting out albums, whether it's on the 'net or whether it's Nas' album, you hear cats putting innovation into their projects. It's still alive. Anything goes through good days and bad days. I just think it's at a point where it has been redundant. It hasn't been coming up with new things overall.

But there are still artists out there [who do]. Whether it's Madlib doing innovative stuff or Kanye doing something innovative, they're still pushing the envelope. Those artists just have to continue to make music and break the barriers of being heard. It was big for me, for Be to be heard by a new audience, and I think, in turn, it's healthy for the music. People are going to hear new sounds, which is what hip-hop is all about.

Pitchfork: Since you've been around long enough to see several waves of new things happen to the music, how do you deal with guys now who say things like, "Resurrection and Like Water for Chocolate-- I grew up with those records"? How do you deal with that sort of elder statesman status?

Common: [laughs] It's funny, because I guess I don't look at myself in that sort of way. I look at things with a broader scope. I'm looking at artists, let's not only just take hip-hop, let's just take artists, musicians. It could be Stevie Wonder; it could be Chaka Khan; it could Martin Scorsese-- they have careers that last. I look at it like, man, I want to have a career that lasts. Hip-hop is new, so we haven't seen artists exist that way [but] you know there are artists in jazz music that have existed for forty, fifty years. Herbie Hancock keeps making albums. God willing, that's what I want to be, an artist that makes albums until I'm old and... well, I can't go grasy, but old and whatever... bald-headed.

Pitchfork: How do you make sure the music keeps hitting people? What do you say when people say a certain album of yours was good, but nothing has happened since then?

Common: You make the best music you can make. Out of my experience, that's what I've learned the most. You've just got to make the music that you think is the best and that's true to your heart.

People are going to make decisions about what they like the most, and the fact that they're listening is a beautiful thing. People are always going to have their favorites for whatever reason. That favorite may have meant something to them at that time in their life. You never know why that's the album that they connect with most. So you just owe it to be intimate and give your best, to be honest with [them] too about where you are at that moment.

The beautiful thing is when you create a body of work, you will have people come up to you and say they like different albums. I've had people come up and say, "Resurrection's my favorite," "Like Water for Chocolate's my favorite," "One Day It'll All Make Sense was a classic," "I kind of liked Electric Circus." I hear all that. I've had people in the listening sessions now say that Finding Forever is my best album. I'm not one to go out and say that because at this point I'm just making music that I want to hear, that I feel is creative and adding on to the culture, and I'll let the people decide.