Common

Genres:	Action & Adventure • Blues • Comedy • Documentaries • Drama • Kids & Family • Music Videos & Concerts • R&B / Soul • Sci-Fi / Fantasy • Sports & Recreation • Television • Urban & Rap
Descriptive "tags":	hip-hop • rap • hip hop • soul • alternative rap
Decades Active:	1990s • 2000s
Links online:	BBC Music • Fan Page • IMDb • MySpace • Official Homepage • Wikipedia

Biography

Lonnie Rashied Lynn Jnr., 13 March 1972, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Originally recording under the expanded pseudonym Common Sense, Lynn is one of the more enlightened contemporary rappers, proffering a heady mix of verbiage and syncopated hip-hop rhythms. He made his debut in 1992 with Can I Borrow A Dollar?, a series of tracts on consumer identity with the occasional lapse into X-rated anatomical detail to make it a hit with the hardcore hip-hop audience. Conversely, the best song was ‘Take It EZ’, a laid-back statement of identity and individuality. By the advent of Resurrection in 1994, Lynn had abandoned some of the bloated misogyny of the debut, and the results were excellent. Fuelled by the soul and funk beats of his DJ No I.D., the album provided the rapper with a license to indulge his self-evident love of vocabulary and syntax (particularly affecting was his sketch of black economics - ‘Chapter 13 (Rich Man vs. Poor Man)’).

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