For one special evening, Academy, Grammy and Emmy-Award winning artist Common is bringing his classic hip-hop catalog to Miami, performing alongside Miami’s Nu Deco Ensemble, a hybrid chamber orchestra.
"You hear your music like you never heard it before," Common told WLRN.
The Chicago-native is known for his deep, introspective records ranging from "Go" and Oscar-winning song "Glory," to "The Corner" and "The Light," to newer releases like "Wise Up" — the lead single from the Grammy-nominated collaborative album The Auditorium Vol. 1 alongside legendary producer Pete Rock.
Common's connection to the Sunshine State began during his college years at Florida A&M University or FAMU in the early 90s; he received an honorary doctorate of Fine Arts in 2019.
He said his time spent around students from all over the state gave him a deep appreciation for the region's diverse crowds.
"So it's people from Opa-locka and Liberty City, and I heard of all these places because of being in school there. The energy of Miami is its own place," Common explained, highlighting the city's rich mix of the Black diaspora and Latino cultures.
"The people have responded to music from what their roots are. I love looking out in the crowd and seeing different backgrounds and different people."
Common, who plays Robert Sims on the hit Apple TV+ sci-fi series Silo, is performing his classic music with the Nu Deco Ensemble orchestra Nov. 12 at 8 p.m. at the Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall.
READ MORE: A Lake Worth Beach artist’s mission to keep Día de los Muertos traditions alive
This isn't his first time performing with an orchestra. He said adapting his legendary discography for a live orchestra requires careful curation alongside his music director, DJ Dummy, to find tracks with the right chord progressions and musicality.
"We pick songs that we know have musicality to them. Some of the songs already have strings, so you're like, 'Oh, this is gonna be amazing with strings,'" he said. "But then it's some of the other ones where you feel like you could hear these chord progressions and you like, "Oh, this would be amazing with an orchestra."
Crafting a theme also helps drive home the storytelling, he added, but this show is bit more improvised.
"The theme for this will be based around Nu Deco and based around the freedom of music," he said. "And it will be about improvisation, about creativity. So I love concepts, but this one will be just about the freedom of music, jazz, and improv, and soul."
Common, a student of the history of hip-hop and soul, draws inspiration to legendary artists like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone, KRS-One, Big Daddy Kane, Queen Latifah, Aretha Franklyn, Brand Nubian, Fela Kuti and Bob Marley.
He views his enduring career as a balance of conscious messaging and beautiful sound. For Common, the ultimate goal is crafting art that uplifts and "reflects the times," as Nina Simone would say, while remaining timeless.
"It's very important for me to have music that can resonate throughout generations," he noted. "And I think what I learned is that music that is relative to life, music that has humanity to it, music that has spirituality to it will somehow find generations when they get to that point in life."
IF YOU GO:
What: Live at Knight Common With Nu Deco Ensemble
When: November 12 at 8pm
Where: 1300 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33132
For More Information, here
