Two days after winning the Grammy Award
for “Best Rap Performance By A Duo Or Group” with producer/label-mate
Kanye West for the song “Southside,” Common posted a
video journal [click here] on his MySpace
blogt to update fans on his “new things,
new ideas, [and] new creations.”
Common reveals that his eighth
studio album—and third with Kanye West—will be entitled The
Believer.
“I haven’t started, but I started mentally,” Common writes. “…It’s up to y’all to decide if it’s better than this
album or that album, but I’m going say it’s going to be one of my
best albums ever.” Common writes that along with previous collaborators
like West and Neptunes, that he also wants to work with
Just Blaze for the LP. The two are currently working on a remake
of Common’s trademark song “The Light” for a project being
released by Cornerstone Promotions.
While scarce on details, Common
also writes that he’s got several movie projects coming up. “You don’t
want to talk about stuff till it’s etched in stone and everything
is there,” he says, “because you be sayin stuff and then it don’t
happen, or you just keep the energy close till it’s time.”
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He did,
however, namedrop two other films he’s working on, Wanted and The Night Watch Man. According to IMDB, Wanted co-stars
Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie. The site lists the new
title for the latter film as Street Kings, and has Keanu Reeves
and Forest Whitaker as headliners. DX initially confirmed
that Common was set to play superhero Green Lantern in Justice League of America, though MTV also reported that the film
is on indefinite hold due to the Writer’s Guild strike in Hollywood.
Common also said that he’s
working on more children’s books, and namedropped the Common Ground
Foundation. Common has two children’s books under his belt
so far, Mirror and Me and I Like You But I Love Me; the
second was nominated for an NAACP Image Award last year. His website
has another, M.E. Mixed Emotions, with impending release. The
Common Ground Foundation, “is dedicated to the empowerment and development
of urban youth in the United States through the arts and education.”
