“To be able to come into a classroom where there’s graffiti, on purpose, it’s so welcoming. [I want the students to know] this is for you; this is created for you,” Common said. A dozen years ago, the MC
dedicated a song from his chart-topping
Finding Forever album to this neighborhood.
Five years ago, Common titled an album
Nobody’s Smiling. It was an indictment on the violence in his city. At Art In Motion, the school features a peace room. “If somebody’s behavior is not right—they’re not doing the right thing, they’ll go to the peace room, and find a way—through our counselors—to meditate and try to center themselves to resolve [the anger] without it just being a punishment. [No more] ‘You’re wrong, and now you can’t come to school.’ This is [a way] to heal our community, and to
build our community. The things our kids experience, some of that emotional trauma and the drama that our kids go through, it has to be resolved. It has to be healed, and it has to be treated. For them to be able to receive that at school is a gift.”
Elaborating on providing this gift, Comm’ explained, “It’s my duty to not only reflect the times, but as Nina Simone says, but it’s my duty to give back to where I’ve come from. It’s my duty to allow the new generation to have greater opportunities than me. Like, they gotta have better opportunities than we had. We owe that to them; I owe it to ’em. The fact that I’ve been given a platform and been given a microphone and been given certain opportunities, I have to create those dreams for others—and those realities.”
