Multiple Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Award-winning Chicago rapper, actor, social activist, and philanthropist Common releases his 11th studio album, BLACK AMERICA AGAIN, on ARTium/Def Jam Recordings.
Coinciding with the new album release, VEVO has premiered a powerful long-form video for the project, produced by Ava DuVernayand directed by Bradford Young, acclaimed director and cinematographer respectively of the award-winning film Selma. Watch it HERE.
In turn, Common’s anthem “Letter To The Free” featuring Bilal (another track on BLACK AMERICA AGAIN), serves as the end-title track of DuVernay’s powerful new documentary ‘13th.’ Centered on race in the United States criminal justice system, ‘13th’ is named for the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which theoretically outlawed slavery. DuVernay makes the point that slavery, in spite of the Constitutional amendment, is being perpetuated through mass incarceration. “Letter To The Free” has already been nominated for a 2016 Critics’ Choice Documentary Award for Best Song in a Documentary.
Themes of race and justice run deep throughout BLACK AMERICA AGAIN and its title track single. “I wrote this song in March,” Common said of “Black America Again” recently, “and unfortunately it was as relevant then as it is now. As it could have been in the 1960s or 1800s or any era that we have existed in this country. ‘Black America Again’ is centered in the injustices that black people have experienced and endured since we arrived on the shores of America. ‘Black America Again’ is a call to action. It is a song about black love, black strength, black justice, black resistance, black resilience, black empowerment, and black people.”
“Black America Again”’s socially conscious message resonates with scorching yet uplifting power, akin to Common’s groundbreaking 2014 single from the Selma movie soundtrack, “Glory” (with John Legend) for which they received Oscar, Grammy®, Golden Globe, and numerous other awards.