Common was the musical guest on Thursday night’s episode of Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and he treated the audience to a revised version of U.S. history with a performance of his track “Black America Again.” As the title track to his upcoming album, the song drives home its powerful message: black people have to take control of the telling of their story.
Com performed the track with assistance of BJ The Chicago Kid, who stood in for Stevie Wonder and appears on another album cut, too, and The Roots, but he really didn’t require much help in creating a mesmerizing performance on the darkened stage. His words alone did that.
“Who stole the soul from black folk?
Same man that stole the land from Chief Black Smoke
And made the whip crackle on our back slow
And made us go through the back door
And raffle black bodies on the slave blocks
Now we slave to the blocks, on ’em we spray shots
Leaving our own to lay in a box
Black mother’s stomachs stay in a knot
We kill each other, it’s part of the plot”
Chicago-born MC is set to release his eleventh studio album, Black America Again, on November 4th. In June, Com told us, “I forget how much I love making music until I started creating this project.” The title track makes it sound like he meant every word he said in that statement.
