Common
CountryUnited States 
GenderMale
BirthdayMärz 13, 1972
BiographyLonnie Rashid Lynn (born March 13, 1972), known professionally as Common (formerly known as Common Sense), is an American rapper and actor. He is the recipient of three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award. At the age of 20, he signed with the independent label Relativity Records to release his debut studio album Can I Borrow a Dollar? (1992), which was met with critical acclaim along with its follow-ups, Resurrection (1994) and One Day It'll All Make Sense (1997). He maintained an underground following into the late 1990s, and achieved mainstream success through his work with the Black music collective, Soulquarians.
After attaining a major label record deal, he released his fourth and fifth albums, Like Water for Chocolate (2000) and Electric Circus (2002), to continued acclaim and modest commercial response. His guest performance on fellow Soulquarian, Erykah Badu's 2003 single, "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)", won Best R&B Song at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards. He signed with fellow Chicago rapper Kanye West's record label GOOD Music, in a joint venture with Geffen Records to release his sixth album Be (2005), which was met with both critical and commercial success and yielded a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album. His seventh album, Finding Forever (2007), became his first to debut atop the Billboard 200, while a song from the album, "Southside" (featuring Kanye West) won Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. His eighth album, Universal Mind Control (2008), was met with mixed critical reception and served as his final release with GOOD. Common's own label imprint, Think Common Entertainment, was founded in 2011 and entered a joint venture with Warner Bros. Records to release his ninth album, The Dreamer/The Believer (2011), and later No I.D.'s ARTium Recordings, an imprint of Def Jam Recordings to release his tenth album, Nobody's Smiling (2014). Both received critical praise and further discussed social issues in Black America; his eleventh album, Black America Again (2016) saw widespread critical acclaim and served as his final release on a major label.
Lynn won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for his song "Glory" (with John Legend), which he released for the film Selma (2014), wherein he co-starred as civil rights leader James Bevel. His other film roles include Smokin' Aces (2006), Street Kings (2008), American Gangster (2007), Wanted (2008), Date Night (2010), Just Wright (2010), Happy Feet Two (2011), Run All Night (2015), John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), and Smallfoot (2018). In television, he starred as Elam Ferguson in AMC western series Hell on Wheels from 2011 to 2014, and has played a supporting role in the Apple TV+ science fiction series Silo since 2023. His song "Letter to the Free" was released for the Ava DuVernay-directed Netflix documentary 13th (2017), for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. He made his Broadway acting debut on the play Between Riverside and Crazy (2023), which won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Biography from the Wikipedia article Common (rapper). Licensed under CC-BY-SA. Full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
After attaining a major label record deal, he released his fourth and fifth albums, Like Water for Chocolate (2000) and Electric Circus (2002), to continued acclaim and modest commercial response. His guest performance on fellow Soulquarian, Erykah Badu's 2003 single, "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)", won Best R&B Song at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards. He signed with fellow Chicago rapper Kanye West's record label GOOD Music, in a joint venture with Geffen Records to release his sixth album Be (2005), which was met with both critical and commercial success and yielded a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album. His seventh album, Finding Forever (2007), became his first to debut atop the Billboard 200, while a song from the album, "Southside" (featuring Kanye West) won Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. His eighth album, Universal Mind Control (2008), was met with mixed critical reception and served as his final release with GOOD. Common's own label imprint, Think Common Entertainment, was founded in 2011 and entered a joint venture with Warner Bros. Records to release his ninth album, The Dreamer/The Believer (2011), and later No I.D.'s ARTium Recordings, an imprint of Def Jam Recordings to release his tenth album, Nobody's Smiling (2014). Both received critical praise and further discussed social issues in Black America; his eleventh album, Black America Again (2016) saw widespread critical acclaim and served as his final release on a major label.
Lynn won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for his song "Glory" (with John Legend), which he released for the film Selma (2014), wherein he co-starred as civil rights leader James Bevel. His other film roles include Smokin' Aces (2006), Street Kings (2008), American Gangster (2007), Wanted (2008), Date Night (2010), Just Wright (2010), Happy Feet Two (2011), Run All Night (2015), John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), and Smallfoot (2018). In television, he starred as Elam Ferguson in AMC western series Hell on Wheels from 2011 to 2014, and has played a supporting role in the Apple TV+ science fiction series Silo since 2023. His song "Letter to the Free" was released for the Ava DuVernay-directed Netflix documentary 13th (2017), for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. He made his Broadway acting debut on the play Between Riverside and Crazy (2023), which won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Biography from the Wikipedia article Common (rapper). Licensed under CC-BY-SA. Full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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