October 29, 2007 @ 11:26 am

AMERICAN GANGSTER WEEK: Common - from Chicago to Hollywood

by: Shanel Odum

VIBE.com leads up to the release of American Gangster with a bevy of g-related ish. First installment: Common goes from rap to Gap to the silver screen.

"Hey, isn't that the guy from the GAP commercial?"

A little girl points out Common's familiar bald head as he signs copies of the CD she's never heard of at a nearby table. The line of fans slowly snaking through the aisles of a downtown DC Borders bookstore on this early August afternoon is notably more diverse than his original audience, which he once jokingly referred to as "coffee-shop chicks and white dudes," but the afro chicks and backpacking hip hop heads are still in the building. Mixed in, though, there's also a crew of rainbow-embellished high-schoolers, some buttoned-down guys with work IDs around their necks, and a couple of veiled Muslim women in full, traditional garb.

Point being, while a lot has remained the same, shit done changed for the 34-year-old Chicago lyricist born Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr. And not just because of his peace-peddling musical endeavors. Look quickly, like the little girl, and you just might catch him mid-stride of a commercial career crossover - not the easiest place to be for our favorite B-boy-turned-bohemian-turned-Converse-endorsing MC ("crossover" has always been a little too close to "sell-out" in hip hop's thesaurus), but maybe the most natural. Maybe even game-changing.

With Finding Forever (GOOD / Geffen), the highest debuting album of his career, just three weeks on the shelves, Common's in the midst of a cross-continental promo run doing a series of in-store appearances and album release parties. In a few weeks, he'll headline the Heineken Red Star Soul tour, an eight-city showcase that also features ex-girlfriend Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq. It may have taken Common seven albums and 15 years to get here, at the top of the charts, at the heart of the hip-hop-really-ain't-dead movement - but he finally knows what it feels like to win. And you'd think he'd want to relish it. To talk about the music. Nope. Instead, he wants to talk about film. In particular, his performance in the upcoming Ridley Scott crime epic, American Gangster (Universal Pictures). And he just doesn't want to discuss, he wants to dissect.

"I didn't like watching myself," he says with a touch of insecurity, between back-to-back segments at DC radio stations. "When I watch actors that I love, like Sean Penn or Don Cheadle, I don't even know it's them. But when I saw myself laughing onscreen, I'm like, Oh, that's Rashid."

When he's told that he wasn't the only one to recognize Rashid, as in Common, rather than his character Turner Lucas, alongside Denzel Washington's heroin kingpin Frank Lucas - he's clearly deflated. It's the Cheshire grin that gives him away - it's the same look he gives you in every commercial, video, and televised interview. It's the same Common that you always see - safe, nonthreatening, organic, hip hop.

After a few more scenes, though, he truly transforms into Frank's fresh-faced "country cousin," who's summoned from North Carolina to become one of his Harlem street soldiers. It's a character with an unassuming presence and a hunger for respect - not much of a stretch for the mild-mannered MC. Although he gets less screen time and backstory than his castmate T.I., Common's part capitalizes on his familiar, laid-back charm. In that respect, the newly S.A.G.-certified rookie does a commendable job - in all six of his scenes.

Not that Common's a virgin to the big screen, during his breakout role as a gangster's bodyguard in last year's dark action comedy Smokin' Aces (Universal), which was also admittedly small, he showed that he had the presence to command the camera. And it didn't go unrecognized. In addition to American Gangster, he's already wrapped his next performance as a corrupt, homicidal cop in the upcoming thriller The Night Watchman (Fox Searchlight) alongside Forest Whitaker and Keanu Reeves. "I finished it the night my album came out," he recalls. "It was like this beautiful dream world. We finished filming at 11:30 and my album came out at midnight." Next in the can is him playing a gat-toting tough guy in Wanted (Kickstart), a flick based on the popular graphic novel of the same name, starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman.

In the end, though, it's not the number of lines he memorized, but the fact that just a few movies into his new professionm he's already sharing screen-time with the big dogs of Hollywood. The multimillion-bucks-a-picture vets that most hip hop cats are happy to simply share the room with. Not that he's a headliner just yet - Will Smith, Queen Latifah and Ice Cube come to mind - but instead of easily swapping industries to become the predictable rapper-cum-actor, Common may have what it takes to morph into the mythical "rapper/actor" idea to which so many artists aspire. Because unlike Smith and Cube, who were already becoming closed chapters in hip hop history, Common remains musically vibrant. There's a chance that he won't have to abandon his Grammy aspirations to pursue dreams of an Oscar.

"I need new fulfillment as an artist," he says over lobster later that night. "I feel like I can become a bigger actor than I am a rapper. It's scary thinking, Damn if I don't sell no records, what am I going to do? When you haven't made multimillions in this game, you got to think about what you want to be doing when you're 50 or 60. I found an art that I really love and it's infinite."

History's proven that once a hardcore MC starts tapping into the PG-crowd with family-friendly movie roles, it's damn near impossible to hang on to their "musical parental advisory"-ignoring crowd. Will Smith never tried to claim that bunch in the first place. Cube - not so much anymore. Common's different. Even if it's no longer his primary focus, he's still too busy making grown folk's hip hop to reel in the block-huggers with fake gangsta rhymes. Unlike his predecessors, Common has the unique opportunity to continue pursuing both music and movies without risking his, for lack of a better term, street cred.

Watching Common play the tough guy, whether in Smokin' Aces or American Gangster, you can't help but wonder if his hard-core acting endeavors are his way of rebelling against his rep as hip hop's sensitive pacifist or something less deliberate.

"I'm not saying that I'm a killer," he says, with a scratch of his beard, "but I guess every person has a killer in them." He takes a moment to choose his words before continuing. "I wanted them dark roles to express some of the things that I can't show as Rashid or Common. I love that transition, becoming that person." That's when I really feel like an actor."

This article was first printed in VIBE's November 2007 issue.

Article tags: American Gangster, Common, Ice Cube, Queen Latifah, T.I., Will Smith 

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