Common and Talib Kweli have just announced an Australian tour, hereby confirming 2016 to be, by far, the absolute greatest year in history for hip-hop artists visiting Australia.
The pair are among the absolute most lyrically gifted rappers in history, and the fact that they’re teaming up is beyond anything imaginable. While it’s technically not a co-headline tour, with Kweli (inexplicably) booked as Common’s support, it very obviously IS a co-headline tour to us, considering they are equally talented, equally brilliant and equally worthy of the top slot.
A four time Grammy, Golden Globe and Oscar winner, Common last visited Australia in 2014 for the now-defunct hip-hop/R&B festival Soulfest. In 2012 he featured on G.O.O.D Music’s first ever compilation album, Cruel Summer, alongside Kanye, Pusha T, Big Sean, 2 Chainz and Kid Cudi, before signing to Def Jam in 2014 and releasing his tenth album, Nobody’s Smiling, which featured Vince Staples, Jhene Aiko, Big Sean and more.
The prolific and endlessly outspoken Kweli, who released a slew of new, free releases last year, was booked to perform at last year’s Soulfest, but it was cancelled at the last minute. On top of the groundbreaking Mos Def collaborative album Black Star, arguably the greatest underground hip-hop record of all time, his many solo albums have time and time again proven him to be one of the most important, insightful, socially aware rappers in history.
The tour will see the pair visit Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Sydney, before heading to New Zealand for Common’s first ever headline performance in Wellington.
Tickets go on sale on Thursday March 31.
Common & Talib Kweli 2016 Tour Dates
Friday, May 6: Trak Lounge, Melbourne
Saturday, May 7: Eatons Hill, Brisbane
Sunday, May 8: Thebarton, Adelaide
Monday, May 9: Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Wednesday, May 11: TSB Bank Arena, Wellington
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVtpXvzzXiA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzqyeq7VOcg
By the time I was in Year 12, I had already been broken up with a few times for not showing my girlfriends how I felt. Girls were starting to want more than receiving excess MVP trophies instead of flowers, and sitting in the crowd with my mum while I blocked shots on the basketball court (I think she got to know them better than I did.) Women started wanting me to share my feelings (which still makes me shudder a little bit,) but I was too busy watching And1 videos, wishing I could do more than the standard one-arm-white-boy dunk, and hoping to play college ball. When I wasn’t watching or playing basketball, I was listening to rap: Ice Cube, 2Pac, Notorious, Bone Thugs, DMX, and Xzibit were my regulars. So is it any wonder I had no idea how to express my feelings?
And then one night I was watching Chappelle’s Show, and his musical guests were ‘two of Chicago’s finest MCs’ – Common and Kanye West. Having smashed Kanye’s albums that summer, I was stoked. The song they performed live was The Food, featured on Common’s Be. I thought it was so dope, and a little different to the harder rap I had been listening to up until this day. Up until then, I had only heard Common’s I Used To Love Her and a few of his poems on Def Poetry Jam. But this song had my attention, and since I was saving money for Jordans, I found a friend who had the CD and I burned a copy of it. With Kanye’s blessing of course: “He’s today’s Marvin Gaye of rap,” Kanye said on the DVD accompanying the deluxe edition of Be. “Buy the album. If you in a situation where you can barely buy groceries, burn the album.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mco3xpXfnsU]
Common’s Be showed me that there could be ‘love’ in rap; that it wasn’t just all about the gun toting, blunt smoking, murder fantasy stuff I knew and loved.
The eleven-track album is almost entirely produced by fellow Chi-town native Kanye, and the production is as much part of the album as the raps. The first track, title track Be, starts off with a lengthy instrumental, upright bass filling the air as the track heats up. “Yes,” says Common. It’s game on.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MedYGL45DnE]
There are some people in this world who can roll out of bed, open the curtain, smile at the world and say “yes.” For me, I roll out of bed, keep the blind down and Common says “yes” for me. This song became my getting dressed song (much to my mum’s relief, as she didn’t have to hear Cube banging at 7:30 a.m. anymore.) All day long I would have the beat stuck in my head. When I was in class, I would nod my head to it – I had listened to it so much, I didn’t need a cheeky headphone in; I had the beat and the lyrics on perfect playback in my mind. The last line of the song goes: “the present is a gift and I just wanna be” – I took this to mean that I was meant to be myself, so I went about my day comfortably just being me.
Apart from getting my day off to a good start, Be also normalised the feeling I was having about that dreaded ‘L’ word all my girlfriends kept bringing up in the weeks before dumping me. I remember listening to this album after yet another girlfriend broke up with me for not ‘sharing my feelings’ and I was sitting at home trying to figure out why hanging out with a girl and calling her at night time wasn’t enough. I wasn’t good at expressing any such thoughts I might have had about whether I ‘loved’ or just ‘liked’ someone.
Then I heard Common’s Love Is…: “Yeah, you know what love is/Even found it on the ground where the thugs live/My man had to dig deep to find his.” It was the first time I had heard a man talk about love in any way. Friends of mine didn’t really have many girlfriends and if they did, they certainly never admitted any feelings outside of their girl’s ears. Common continues, “as men we were taught to hold it in/That’s why we don’t know how ’til we’re older men/If love is a place I’ma go again/At least now, now I know to go within,” the lyrics came as fatherly advice. Not that I couldn’t have gone to my folks for advice, but I wasn’t really after advice. I was in a sort of careless place, but after a couple of breakups, you can’t help but start to care. The muscle-bound athletes and the gangster rappers were my idols, and they spoke nothing of love towards women, only of a love for their respective games. Common was the one who said it was okay to care, and who spoke about “how beautiful love can be.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDNBfj7bldQ]
After a short recovery period, I had a new girlfriend, and I thought of trying out the love thang. As the relationship progressed, though, I still couldn’t find the right words face-to-face. I reckon even Shaq made more free-throws that year than I confessed feelings in person. I wasn’t too bad at texting feelings, so I decided to give poetry and letter writing a chance. And it seemed to work, as I could just hand her letters as I left her place for basketball and she could read them while I was out, and I would know when I got back we would not have to have any of ‘those’ chats when I just wanted to laze around after dominating the youth leagues.
Eventually, this new girl would break up with me, but not before smashing my previous relationship length records. It seemed that poetry and letter writing was a good start – I still couldn’t say anything in person, but I was on a positive path. Common’s Be then became my break-up album, not because it was sad and I could sit in my room and cry, but because it made my feelings okay to have. As Common expresses in the song Go!: “We make love and then laughter,” in a nonsexual connotation, is solid advice to live by.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCe1gC5VaW4]
I still use poems and letters to convey my feelings but I am slightly better at the verbal side of it all, so I guess not even Common has a magical cure-all. I feel pretty confident saying I would probably still be having girls break up with me every couple of months if Be had never come into my life, and I haven’t been broken up with for years now (the poor girl.)
Hip-hop was able to take the feelings I had underneath and give them a voice. In turn, it pushed me to voice those feelings myself. And it all started with Common’s Be.
Rapper turned actor/producer Common is on a media warpath this year. He signed a deal with cable network Showtime two months ago, to produce a coming-of-age tale set in Chicago, dealing with racial issues and growing up African American. Now, the mogul has signed a first-look deal with HBO which entitles the cable powerhouse the rights to future projects, produced by his company Freedom Road Productions.
Common is no stranger to the film industry, having expanded his career to include acting in 2002 – his first role was in the Taye Diggs romantic comedy Brown Sugar. Never straying too far from hip hop though, Common continued to make albums throughout the last decade, culminating in his number 1 Finding Forever in 2007. What does the HBO deal mean though?
The hip hop-star-turned-mogul narrative is a popular one, with superstars like Jay-Z, 50 Cent, and Kanye West being the most notable of the rappers turned businessmen. But none of them have quite succeeded in carving out a path in the film industry, even if 50 cent has tried before (the jury’s still out about his current TV show, Power). One wonders if Common picked up some tips from his co-star in the 2010 film Just Wright, Queen Latifah. Either way, usually, the rapper-turned-actor story is one of folly, but it does succeed when the proponent is a thoughtful and intelligent artist who knows how to tell stories in their music. That’s a skill that tends to translate into the film world. The same in the opposite direction, Childish Gambino anyone?
Common has been in the media a lot recently, what with his Showtime deal, his shots at media integrity, and now with the 2-year HBO signing, and has made some salient and interesting points. The faith shown by HBO is an indication of the mans talent for story-telling, something a lot of us already knew, and can now be vindicated with one of the most discerning television networks recognizing and fostering his talents. Nothing has been announced yet regarding the Freedom Road Productions first project, but keep your eyes peeled as I’m sure, if nothing else, it will be interesting, just like Common’s music.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7B2VgRShew]
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Chicago rapper-turned-actor Common has taken shots at the news media today, claiming that “the integrity of the media is gone in many areas.” The outcry was supposedly sparked over what he believes is a disparity in coverage of American presidential candidates, in the favour of the exploits of controversial CEO turned politician Donald Trump. You know the guy who has a lot of money from that TV show, oh, and the guy that thinks mexican immigrants are bogeyman drug dealers, rapists and criminals, yeah, that guy.
Being anything but what his name might suggest, Common, the compelling and talented musician made some salient and poignant arguments, albeit briefly during a Q&A with HuffPost Live. Best known for his gold album Be, released in 2005 by G.O.O.D Music and Geffen Records, the rapper doesn’t seem to have a specific problem with the hairpiece touting mogul, rather, just that the media at large takes a slanted and saturated view of Donald for “the numbers”. He continues to question the motives of those in charge of reporting the news:
It’s like where is the integrity of the journalists who know and will challenge these thoughts so that the American people can see truth and really have a good opportunity to get behind someone who’s going to matter, who’s going to really be about affecting change and improving this country.
We’ve seen many cases of a disparity between coverage for non-white ethnicity’s in western media, and on the major news networks diversity often seems little more than a box they must check to avoid profiling accusations. But when it comes to elections, the politician and media relationship can become very murky. News, at its core, is responsible for informing, but in the highly competitive print, digital and television news world, ratings, views, and purchases are at the top of the priority list. Without them, any mass media outlet would cease to exist. So while one media outlet runs Trump stories, receiving giant ratings, other outlets are kind of handcuffed, following suit or conceding the viewership they need for continued existence. At a more philosophical level though, that doesn’t just blur the line between informative news and entertainment, it shatters it.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQAzpV7GC0U]
Now I’m not saying that we’re living in the world of sly manipulation presented in Network, but Common’s point, and it’s a good one, is that the media is responsible for informing viewers, providing them with the content required to make informed and personal choices based upon what they read, watch and hear, and sometimes, they fall short. And never is this more important than during an election campaign. While news media isn’t exactly reporting inaccurate or biased news, and by no means is it necessarily insidious, there is definitely a disparity between coverage of less entertaining candidates and larger than life personalities running for office, and that is clearly problematic when a lot of voters are relying on news coverage to present to them candidates that they find themselves aligned with politically.
What does it all boil down to though? Not much really, just the fact that as long as people like Common continue to point out the failures of journalism, it will hopefully encourage consumers to think critically about what they are watching and not let themselves be shaped or manipulated by media saturation. So let’s all be healthily skeptical and make informed decisions when we vote against Malcolm Turnbull. And as a representative of Howl & Echoes I’d just like to say that I will no longer write about Donald Trump, if only because Common made it seem really uncool.