Common reveals new album 'Nobody Smiling'

Common has revealed on Revolt TV that he is working on a new album called Nobody Smiling. The conscious rapper said that the album will focus on the violence that is plaguing his hometown of Chicago and his fellow rappers that glamorize it.

"It happens in Chicago, but it's going on around the world in many ways, in inner cities all over America. We were talking about the conditions of what was happening when I said Nobody Smiling, but it's really a call to action,"  Common said.

He also released the album's first single, the fittingly titled "War." The song takes the Chiraq metaphor to its logical conclusion, likening young gang members in the city to soldiers who are dying in unnecessary conflicts. 

Hopefully the production gets cleaned up a bit before the album's release. Common's voice sounds odd and out-of-place, like a demo recorded over a scratch track. But at the end you find out that Chicago's gun violence problem was "hip-hop" the whole time...mindblown.gif.

Common has been calling for a peace summit among Chi-town's rappers for quite a while in an attempt to curb the glamorization of the city's crime wave. It appears that his latest album will be an extension of that.

"To decide to take someone's life, I don't think they let a rap song determine that," he said last year, adding that rap artists simply reflect of the violence of the streets, and don't cause it. At the same time, he said, fans of young rappers, whose music provides a window into a violent lifestyle, are "influenced by that energy and take it the wrong way." 

Check out the whole interview below: