Song Exploder - Common - A Riot In My Mind

Episode Date: December 16, 2020

Common is a Grammy- and Oscar-winning rapper, actor, and activist from Chicago. He’s been making records since 1992, and in October, he released his thirteenth album, A Beautiful Revolution. In this episode, he breaks down how he made the song “A Riot In My Mind,” along with a handful of collaborators, including Lenny Kravitz and a cameo from Chuck D. songexploder.net/common

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. Common is a Grammy and Oscar-winning rapper, actor, and activist from Chicago. He's been making records since 1992, and in October, he released his 13th album, A Beautiful Revolution. In this episode, he breaks down how he made the song, A Riot in My Mind, along with a handful of collaborators, including Lenny Kravitz and a cameo from Chuck D. My name is common. My name is common. So at the end of the summer, I was in LA.

I wasn't planning on making an album, but what led me to making an album was the song I was working on for a children's show. It was a show called Bookmarks, where different people, authors, actors, read children's books. And these books were, you know, really, uplifting and saying, hey, we all are one.

Waiting thoughts of you being a star. Truly you'll shine by seeing who you are. It's called Don't Forget Who You Are. And it's featuring PJ. When we made this song, first of all, I just organically felt like, oh, man, I love making music, man. This just feels so good to make some music and to be creating with these co-creators that I love. But then it was the reaction to that song, which I wrote for children.

But people I knew were like, man, I love this song. It makes me feel good. And it was like a moment where I understood that, wait, I need to make some music that's going to be inspiring, it's going to uplift, that's going to bring the energy up and give hope and motivate people. So we wrote that song, got it complete, got it mixed. And I said, man, let's do some more studio sessions. I just experienced, like so many of us, the pandemic,

and I started seeing the world in a new way, kind of more from a more spiritual way. I started getting more in tune with the creator, with God. And I also was in a place of seeing what had occurred over the summer with the killings of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, Ahmad Arbery, and the shooting of Jacob, Lake and just the emotional unrest and tension that existed. I actually went out throughout the summer to the protests.

I went one time to Minnesota, a few weeks after George Floyd's killing for a meeting with some elected officials and community activists. And then I went to Louisville, Kentucky for a rally for Brianna Taylor, for her family and really encouraging the people of Kentucky to be active. in making sure that the people who had killed Brianna Taylor were brought to justice. And that protest really was life-enhancing for me to be a part of. I felt anger.

I felt pain. I felt strength. I felt inspired. I felt the inspiration of the people. That really affected me. At that moment, I was like, I'm going to do an album, and it's going to be movement music.

Riot in my mind really wasn't constructed until the end of September. I wrote the song with my collaborators, Isaiah Sharkey, Boone Bishop, Kareen Riggins, Robert Glasper, and PJ. At that point, we had a beautiful, colorful collage of music for the album, but I want to see if we can come up with something else. I don't know exactly what that may be, but I'm thinking it should be something hard. When I was thinking about movement music,

I truly wanted to make sure I captured the anger, the hurt, the angst. So in my mind, as soon as I'm saying that, I'm like, I need another raw joint, like a joint where I could just give you that energy where you get charged. So I said I wanted a harder sounding beat. The second day of the studio is going well. but Sharkey has to fly back to Chicago for a performance. And we had done a days full of work.

So we were just sitting around talking, and then the suggestion came and we go play a little basketball. So Sharkey and Karim say, you know, we're going to stay in and just work till Sharkey got to leave. So we come back in after playing. And Karim starts to play some of the things that they worked on. He was like, you got to hear this. So I'm listening to this jazz-sounding guitar intro, which I love.

Sharkey is such a gifted guitarist and musician. It just sounded beautiful. But then it kicks in with the drums. He went from a jazz vibe to the hard-sounding, like rock, funk sound. And I'm like, man, sometimes I hear certain pieces of music, and they just take my mind to another place. I give the songs titles sometimes right when I might be freestyling and the engineer say, well, you want to call this?

And I'll just come up with whatever. So as soon as I heard this music, I told Michael the engineer, hey, call this a riot in my mind. So I sat back on the couch, listened to it for a second and was talking. And then I started saying, why da-da, why-da-da-da-da-da. Cassius Clay and the pie-ta. Wadda, why da da da, da, da.

Cassius Clay and the Potta. That thought right there for me, Wadada, Wadda, Wada, Da, da. Was really me referencing like something from 90s hip-hop that just brought me to that energy. But I said Cassius Clay and the Potter, I'm talking about Muhammad Ali and God. I'm saying, Cassius Clay and the Potter

shaped my mind. Referring to God as the Potter is definitely a reference from the Bible. You know, I look at us as the clay, we are the clay, that the potter is shaped. So the first two lines I thought of right there, and then I proceeded to go on and be like, man, we gotta use this, this is it.

And then I got in my truck, which I love to do, and just ride up and down at the PCH, playing the beat and rapping out loud to myself. And when I say something I like, I keep it in my mind. I keep it in my mind and just keep building from there. I haven't written any lyrics down for my album since 94. I just remember it. That's just my process.

Fill with gods against us who scars and faces, traces the racist snakes that debased us, tried to free base us, Mark of the beasts erase us, but we raised up from East Asia. Earlier that day I got a text that my friend, Duane Lyle, had passed. He had died. And Du Wayne used to always tell me, man, when you go in that booth, you got to come out sweating like John Coltrane playing. You got to go with that intensity. I went into the booth.

Right in my mind was giving me the energy. I had my first ready now, and I just felt it. And I remember walking out of that booth to sweat. My whole t-shirt was rich in sweat. And I was like, man, I feel you. you, Duane. Held the scroll that told us seven bowls and seven plagues. Babylon dreaded days where the debtor raised, escapades are the everlasting, where the ghetto

prays for compassion, no longer masking. So many biblical thoughts come out in my songs, I couldn't say, yeah, I'm a supreme scholar on the Bible, but I truly study the Bible. I read it every day. Seven bowls and seven plagues. Babylon dread the days where the dead are raised. So we know Babylon is referred to in the Bible. It's like basically a place is unjust.

A place where the people in power weren't doing right. It wasn't a righteous kingdom. It wasn't a righteous place. And I think our country, America has suffered from the unrighteousness of leadership and the unrighteousness of history. But if we don't acknowledge our wounds and mistakes and things we've caused ourselves or others, then we can never heal.

And when I'm talking about dead, I'm talking about symbolically the dead are raised. Like, spiritually, we are awakened. And those powers that be in that place that they call Babylon, once people are awakened, you know, it's going to be a whole other day. Held the scroll that told us seven bowls and seven plagues, Babylon dreaded days where the debtor raised, escapades are the everlasting, where the ghetto praise, fuck them passing, no longer masking.

The initial concept for this song, I was going to write a long verse, like just write one verse. Because I told you I wanted this song to be a rugged joint, I was thinking like I wasn't going to do a melodic hook to this. But I was like, man, I need to see if Lenny Kravitz Let's get on this one. You know, I went to Yellow Springs, Ohio, where Dave Chappelle lives and was having concerts and comedy shows in the cornfields. And we would perform sometimes.

Well, Matthew, who's a photographer for Dave, also works with Lenny. And a couple times we were in the back of the truck riding through the cornfields, and he FaceTimed Lenny Kraviss. And we were in the photographer. speaking, I was like, man, we got to do a song. And it felt like we both meant it, but we didn't know if that could, you know, people say that all the time. We got to do something. So it could have been

just some FaceTime talk. But a riot in my mind four days later was created. So I was writing and was like, I got to try to get Lenny and see if he'll do this. He hit me and said, send him music if I'm digging it, you know, we'll go from there. So I sent him the music. And I didn't hear from him for a second because his book had just come out, his new book. So in my process of waiting, I thought I need to get PJ to write a hook to this. So if Lenny is so busy and doesn't have time to really work, work on it, we'll have an idea. So I was like, I need you to write a hook that Lenny could sing. So PJ, she said, okay, I'm going to do it this afternoon.

I love when I heard her singing that. I was like, oh, this is it. And then that bridge part, gotta get ready. I said, man, this is dope, PJ. Gotta get ready, shout to look. If you really bad, we gonna see, A babe, gotta get ready, time is up. If you're gonna be better, we gonna see, yeah.

I sent that to Lenny, and this was like October 2nd or 3rd, where I hadn't heard from Lenny if he was for surely gonna do it. But I got to turn in this album, by October 6th. So Lenny called me the next day on the 5th saying, man, I love this song. He laid that hook and I was listening on FaceTime. Like, oh my God, we got Lenny.

His energy was just so incredible and so inspiring and just, he loves doing it. And he was like, yo, you could use whatever you want on this. Gotta get ready, side of love. If you really better, we gonna see. And then we want to get in'n't it, time is up. If you've been a battle, we're going to see. Oh, yeah.

And then we wanted to put some scratches in there. I was engulfed and have been engulfed in 90s hip-hop since the pandemic. Because I work out to 90s hip-hop, and all of it just been so inspiring. And I wanted something public-enemy-ish. I asked DJ Dummy to basically find some scratch-this public-enemy-ish. And then he was like, man, you should just be. get Chuck to do a vocal without scratch it. So we asked Chuck D to do a vocal thing

and let DJ Dummy scratch it. And then DJ Dummy had the idea and added more sirens to it and help give me the energy that I needed to create this music and to remind me of what revolutionary music can be. I wanted something that was hard that had a roughness to it,

but I never would have imagined that a riot in my mind would be what it is and sound like what it is. Just to be able to take the song and have a Chuck D on it and write the words that I was writing, just going into my spirit, into my place of wanting to create and really uplift. And then when I heard Lenny's voice on this song,

I said, wait, just a week ago, a week and a half ago, I didn't even have this song. And now I got Lenny Kravitz all this song? Wait, what's going on? The intro to Shark he played is a minute and 20 seconds somewhere in that range. And it was no way that we wanted to edit his intro.

Like the spirit of this music is about those moments where music is being channeled through you and you letting God speak through you and through your instrument. I think ultimately from the intro even to the way we ended, in between. you feel the riot and the energy and the struggle of it. But by the way it begins and the way it ends, you feel the peace.

So you know that even with the riot going on in your mind, that the peace is still there to be expressed. As much as the riot is going on in my mind, I kind of overcome that riot. I'm just acknowledging that it's there, and I can overcome it with peace. That's what I want for this music. That's what I want for this project,

That's what I always want my music to be. Now, here's a riot in my mind, by Common, in its entirety. Traces of racist snakes to debase us, tried to free base us, Mark of the beasts erase us, but we raised up from East Asia, children of Mother Nature. The minority reports say that we major, and we major. I see greater till the fire next time. It's burning down, there's a riot in my mind. It's elder, held the scroll that told us, I dreaded days where the debtor raised,

Escapades are the everlasting, where the ghetto prays for compassion, no longer masking. Where black men and black women have been, art culture, fashion, the science in Madeline, comedic attraction, we live for action. Moral art back bend, our spirits are tapped in. To the, to the, to the, tick, tick, tick top, eucaly shots, strange fruit, get crops, get land, get stores, kick doors, insure.

Your family's good, plus the people next door. Some are tired by the time, some inspired by the time, it's where power is refined, it's a riot in my mind. visit songexploder.net slash common, where you'll find links to buy or stream a riot in my mind, and you'll find all the past episodes of the show. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out of full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh, Her Way.

I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Weinrobe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album

with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website. Rishikesh.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. Song Exploder is made by me, Rishi-Kesh Hereway, with producer Christian Coons, production

assistant Olivia Wood, and illustrator Carlos Lerma. This is the last episode of the year, the seventh year of the podcast. And it's also the last episode for producer Christian Coons, who started working on Song Exploder in 2015. He became a vital part of the podcast, especially in the last two years, while I've also been trying to make the Song Exploder Netflix show. You can find Christian and follow him on Twitter at X-T-I-A-N-S-K. I can't thank him enough. And thanks to you for listening to the podcast, whether this is your first episode or

if you've been listening for all seven years. Thank you so much. I'll be back in January with more episodes to start year eight of the podcast. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of creative, fiercely independent podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt.

They make a great gift. You can also follow the show on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at Song Exploder. My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening. Radiotopia.