edit. due in three hours

6

Common – Nobody’s Smiling Album

Anousone Soukhaphon

CLJ 114

University of Illinois at Chicago

April 28th , 2015

INTRODUCTION

Common has been a nation-wide known artist who likes to speak about the city of Chicago and the ongoing racial tensions that is happening around the world. We see Common to be an artist who expresses his feelings through songs such as “Testify” and his recent single titled “Glory”. The most prominent work Common is recognized for is his latest album titled “Nobody’s Smiling”. Within this album, Common speaks about Chicago and how race, class, and gender are still big issues. Common also express assumptions made specifically about African Americans that include the notion that all African Americans are affiliated with drugs, weapons, and violence, which is why they are not given an equal opportunity. In addition to this, individuals also undergo racial tensions involving discrimination and racist issues. Lastly, criminalization is at its overall peak here in Chicago. Common raises awareness through his hard-hitting lyrics displaying how African Americans deal with assumptions being made, racial tensions, and criminal commotion.

PORTRAYAL OF RACE, CLASS, AND GENDER

As you begin to listen to “Nobody’s Smiling” you can certainly distinguish

how African Americans are treated in the community and what the results are due to this treatment. In the song titled “Nobody’s Smiling”, Common states, “They drilling on my land but ain’t no order to be found. I might be part of the problem. I guess they just tryna prove they can back that shit up.” Certain individuals in Chicago blame African Americans for the crime that happens in the Southside of Chicago. Statistics show majority of the crimes involve African Americans. I believe that not all individuals who are African American that live in the Southside are involved in crime even though the community portrays them to be. “Nigga selling on the block like an auction. Dig into my pockets, see a profit.”

Listening to the lyrics on the album, class is usually depicted by the amount of wealth and income you have. As I listen, I see that a majority gets wealth and income on the Southside by their heavy involvement with drugs. Most of the people involved in these crimes are all within the same lower class that sell drugs or is involved with it. Lyrics often associated with the use of drugs and how he has been associated with it all his life. The individuals mentioned in his lyrics are mainly teenage African American males and not any other minority. I believe the news and media want to pinpoint strictly on African Americans because they do not see that much harm in other minorities such as Asians or Mexicans. This is how the media wants African Americans to be portrayed as; criminals and convicts. Common steps in and addresses all these portrayals involving African Americans very well.

ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT RACE

Here in Chicago, society assumes that the Southside or the Westside is full of African Americans who are all criminals. By listening to the album entirely, the majority of violence that Common refers to comes from the Southside. The media and news does a good job at making individuals over-think. Media and news make certain locations, groups of people, and certain situations worse than it seems. All you see on ABC, NBC, or CNN is how someone got killed in the Southside of Chicago again and it involved another African American. What about the murders in the Southside that involve whites? They do not show those types of situations. Therefore, the news and media give individuals a perception on only African American crime, which makes individuals think all African Americans are criminals.

RACIAL TENSION

With all of the discrimination here we have in Chicago, Common stays positive and you know this by listening to his lyrics very closely. Stereotypes of the Southside being a horrible place, African Americans being nothing but criminals, to racially profiling every African American causes tons of racial tension to slur between the dominants and the African Americans. The dominants, who are whites, often prejudge and discriminate African Americans due to stereotypes. I believe this is a source for these tensions.

Racial tension will never cease to exist because there will always be individuals that are privileged and will take advantage of it. The privileged will do everything in their power to have minorities stay in the lower class. Nonetheless, Common stays positive and mentions he is black proudly in each of his songs. In his song, “Blak Majik”, he states, “We are black actors. Makin’ somethin’ out of nothin’ blak majik.” African Americans are often not given an equal opportunity such as whites, but Common believes that he and others still make it work. I truly respect Common not just as an artist but also as a person as well for speaking on tough topics such as racial tensions.

CRIMINILIZATION

African Americans have always been the ones to be blamed for crime, no matter the location, or time of day. I believe this is due to what we hear and see in the news and media. The news and media overstate certain statistical data and shows nothing but crimes involving African Americans. In the song titled, “The Neighborhood”, he says, “Can’t nobody stop the violence, why my city keep lyin’? Niggas throw up peace signs but everybody keep dying. I’ve been out here three days and I got shot three times.” A part of me believes that the neighborhood these certain individuals live in has a huge factor in crimes they are involved in.

Listening to these lyrics, I find out that a majority of these individuals who are drug dealers, gang bangers, or just troublemakers in general, never had a father figure in their life. Money was a dominant subject within each song as well. Common speaks on how drugs are basically the only means of life to a majority of African Americans, as they cannot do anything else. The cause of this may be due to lack of jobs, criminal record, or discrimination of hiring. “Feds buildin’ cases, judges who racist and full of hatred I mean you ain’t never seen the shit that I seen.” These lyrics also come from “The Neighborhood” song, which I also agree to. I believe another reason why crime exists today is because of the corruption we see here in Chicago. Individuals feel they are not in a safe environment and therefore they find means to retaliate which includes selling drugs, robbing legit establishments, and just becoming rebels to society.

CONCLUSION

Never in my life have I heard an artist like Common who genuinely loves his city so much that he narrates it in his music. While listening to each song, you get to see how race, gender, and class is portrayed through a third person point of view. You also get to see that even someone who is in a higher power themselves such as Common, they still believe that African Americans are still being criticized and discriminated till this day. Common does an amazing job at incorporating racial tensions that occur in this world with regards to discrimination and racism into his work. As an audience, we relate to Common’s music because we are from the same city so we know exactly what he is speaking about especially when the topic is about crime. Criminalization is a tough subject to speak on but Common also did a good job at expressing his true feelings for others to relate to as well.