Let Love Have the Last Word by Common
When Common Sense first emerged in the hip-hop scene, I wasn’t immediately sold. His debut just didn’t impress me. But over the years, he showed an impressive growth an emcee. He has released some amazing albums, starred in films, and even written a book.
His latest project is entitled “Let Love” and I have had the album for weeks now. I’ve bumped a few of the tracks on Word is Bond Rap Radio.
I didn’t know that he wrote a second book as a companion piece until I found this one in the library.
Common sums up the idea of the book in this passage . . .
“This work has widened my idea of love at its power to heal, and has brought me face-to-face with with my own limitations and shown me my room for growth. There’s a negative energy in certain places in the world that I feel like is the enemy. And I don’t want to succumb to it. When I’m face-to-face with that enemy, that negative energy, I look to see if there’s a way for me to not be at my worst, and to always see the human being in every situation.”
He spends the book trying to reconcile the feelings his daughter once expressed to him. He questions whether or not he did enough, whether or not he truly was a good father.
“Even if I say I hear you and I’m listening, I really don’t and I’m really not, because if I were listening, I would shut up and figure out what my daughter needs me to do for her, then do it.”
He is wresting with the idea of love and what it truly means.
“I do believe in the present moment, in what can be done here and now. In that present moment, I choose love.”
That’s a nice message. We can choose love.
He also stresses the importance of finding a work / life balance.
“We can never use the work as an excuse to make loved one suffer, or be like This is a mighty deed I’m doing, so you don’t get your father as much. It’s not like that, but the work is driving you so much to do these things for the world that sometimes you don’t look and say, I just need to go sit down and watch her do her homework. That’s important too. And I always consider, I always look to myself and say Okay, you feel like you want to make all this change in the world and do all these things, but you have to make sure your home is in the right place and you put in that energy… you have to be aware to be able to maintain that balance in life and parenting.”
This wasn’t as good a read as his last book. It is less a memoir and more an exploration of what love means and him working out his feelings of fatherhood.
But the message is great and it can serve as a companion to piece to his new album, Let Love.