When Common returned home to Chicago last week for Lollapalooza, reflection was on his mind. He thought about the past and the future, and while playing the AT&T, Lolla's main stage with a beautiful skyline of the city to the left and the lake to the right.
“Man, I feel really good,” Common says before performing on stage. “My mother is coming to the show and Kanye's mother is coming. It's a good time for them to come and celebrate with us and our friends. And it's good to be home with people who know who I am and know where I come from, people from Chicago.”
For Common, being on the main stage at the main event in his hometown is a celebration of all the hard work and effort he put into making it this far - so far, he is considered at the top of the hip hop food chain.
“This does feel like a celebration,” he says. “There was a lot of hard work that I put into music and my career and now I feel people saying you are doing it. Before it was people telling me that they are not giving me the credit I deserve or asking why they don't promote me, and now it's more like you made it brother, you deserve it and I am glad for you. People feel like I have become one of the big names in music and in hip hop and that's a beautiful thing.
“I do feel like I am a big name in hip hop and starting to transcend into other genres and other fields. I am proud of that and I want to do that. As long as I can stay true to my music and play from the heart, then it's what I want and then I am doing things right.”
To get to this level, Common never felt he had to play the “game.”
“I never felt like I played the game,” he says, sitting on a couch in his House of Blues Hotel suite. “I remember one single that my label tried to talk me into making a commercial song. It was a time when Biggie Smalls was on the radio and they told me I needed that commercial song. And I do, but it's something that has to come naturally, like that 'Light' did. It was a song that people recognized and touched the world without me having to try differently on it.”
With the commercial hit album in the bag, now Common can focus on anything - any type of music he wants.
“I feel more freedom on a lot of the stuff I am doing now,” Common says. “My stuff can be accepted more now and I don't think too hard about stuff now. I am just doing what comes naturally.”
With musical and emotional freedom, Common is now focused on taking his game to the next level, and he feels like he is on the top of the world.
“Man I feel great that I am apart of it and be among great artists from here,” he says as he pauses and smiles. “Just to be mentioned as someone from Chicago making a difference in the music industry is great.”
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