Common - Let Love Have the Last Word

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ALSO BY COMMON

One Day Itll All Make Sense

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2019 by Think Common Entertainment, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Atria Books hardcover edition May 2019

and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or .

Jacket design by James Iacobelli

Jacket & Author Photographs Brian Bowen Smith/Copious Management, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-5011-3315-2

ISBN 978-1-5011-3318-3 (ebook)

Dear Reader,

No one has it all figured out; I certainly do not. This memoir is intended to share my process of digging deeper, making mistakes, trying again, and continuing to trust God that we all have an opportunity to live in freedom, love, and positivity when we do the work on self. Thank you for taking this journey with me. I hope, through my story, you also find tools and encouragement to apply love, to overcome all.

Love,

Common

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. As Arnold Toynbee says: Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore, the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well.

Frederick Douglass

I was standing in front of a full-length mirror, in the middle of a fashion designers studio in Beverly Hills. It was hot outside, the clear blue sky was hazy, and the sun warmed the concrete. My truck was parked along the curb, and I was thinking about a peaceful, quiet drive. In the meantime, I looked at myself in the mirror.

Kendricks new album DAMN. was on shuffle, and I bobbed my head while my assistant, Aun, sat next to my charging phone, checking her own phone and answering emails, answering texts, cleaning up the calendar, all for the sake of me. I was the center of this work, andI kept looking at myself.

I knew who I saw when I saw the face staring back at meit had been more or less the same face for forty-plus years nowyet I thought: Who is that? Is that me ? Someone asked me a question about a jacket, and I shook my head. Nah, I said.

I could hear Micaela, my stylist, sighing. She was there on the laptop, or I should say in my laptop , propped up on a chair; she watched my fitting from her remote location via FaceTime. I asked her where she was at, and she named the city, said she was working and visiting friends, and I told her I had just been out there myself, and I couldnt wait to get back.

I am blessed with this opportunity of mine to move about the world... it is vital, and it has only increased as time goes by. From vans and buses, touring around the country, doing campus shows back in the early 1990s, to now, present day, flying across the country and around the world.

At the time of this fitting, I was in Los Angeles, my home away from Chicago, and the fitting was for a benefit concert Id been asked to do. There was a red-carpet appearance scheduled prior to the show.

Try this on. I slipped my arms through a dark-brown jacket, this one more my taste. I jerked my shoulders up and down. Feels a little snug but it looks dope, I said, staring at my reflection again. I turned to the left, then to the right; I checked to see where the jacket endedat my hips, almost a perfect fit. I think that one, Micaela said through the laptop, but we have another one in green. Lets try that one. And lets swap out the shoes for the all-white sneakers.

And like that, the stylists assistants buzzed around me with swift movements. I stood there in front of the mirror, and asked Aun what time it was. Just before two, she said, looking up from her phone. She reminded me about the meetings I had later in the day. Meetings . I was to sit down with a director who was shooting a film I wanted in on, and I had a call with a cop from a city police department who was helping me prepare for another possible role, a homicide detective.

Then I had scripts to read, and phone calls to return. I wanted to get to the recording studio later, but the possibility seemed more remote by the minutehence the desire to go for a drive. At least there, in my truck, I could rap to myself over some instrumentals, or to no music at all. Rapping to myself without purpose, only because I loved to do it.

Speaking of love, Ive been rapping for more than twenty-five years now. I would rap for free. I would rap if I lived on the streets. I would rap if I was a preacher, a prisoner, or a politician. I was paid $5,000 for my first album, Can I Borrow a Dollar? an amount that was split among three people. The label got us for the cheap, no doubt, but I was grateful at the time to be paid anything for something I loved to do and would have done no matter the cost.

That Ive since received more money for rapping speaks to perseverance, I suppose, or market forces. Rapping is my release, my art, my way of expression. Its a desire that comes from my spirit, and whenever I can appease the desire to rap, I do. And if I cant do it in a studio, then Ill go for a drive, alone, and do it there, happily and at peace.

The fitting went on for a little while longer. I tried on a couple more outfits, made my choices, which Micaela approved with a thumbs-up from the laptop, and said my goodbyes and thanks to the staff as Aun and I departed. After trying on the fresh clothes, I felt dressed down when I was back in my T-shirt and basketball shorts, my usual outfit when I work out at the gym with my trainer; I often get along with him, but at the time, he and I were having a slight disagreement. It was about politics, something involving the president, barely six months into his first term, who had everyone on edge, it seemed, prepared for disaster. After Barack Obama, the world felt uncertain and unstable, unpredictable, and dark.

When Aun and I stepped outside, the Southern California heat assaulted us. Damn, I said, shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand. Aun and I were walking down the sidewalk, hardly a few yards from my stylists building, when someone shouted me out. Are you Common?