One Day It'll All Make Sense

The story I have to tell involves celebrity: how I broke into the rap game, the people I’ve met, the places I’ve been, my life in the spotlight. But on a more fundamental level this is a book about a mother and a son, a father and a daughter…

     In the twenty years since his first release, Common, born Lonnie Rashied Lynn, has become one of the most successful artists in hip-hop. Winner of two Grammys and with nine successful albums to date, including 2010’s The Believer, he’s now a bona fide movie star, appearing in American Gangster, Date Night, and landing a starring role in Just Wright opposite Queen Latifah.

     Though Common’s parents divorced when he was six, Lonnie Sr. remained an active presence, helping his son get a job as ball boy for the Chicago Bulls. But it was his mother’s steady presence that provided him with the guidance to succeed on his own terms. Her far-reaching influence and Common’s thoughtful account of his own journey through fatherhood form the heart and soul of this genuinely inspiring memoir. One Day It’ll All Make Sense, is, like its subject, outspoken and sometimes controversial, yet indisputably powerful and profound.

Common holds nothing back in this gripping memoir, both provocative and funny. He tells what it was like for a boy with big dreams growing up on the South Side of Chicago. He reveals how he almost quit rapping after his first album sold only two thousand copies. He recounts his rise to stardom and talks about the challenges of balancing fame, love, and family. Through it all, Common emerges as a man in full. Rapper. Actor. Activist. But also father, son, and friend. His story offers a living example of how, no matter what youve gone through, one day itll all make sense.

Adam Bradley is the author of Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop and the co-editor of Ralph Ellison's Three Days Before the Shooting..., and Yale Anthology of Rap. He lives in Boulder with his wife.