Maya Angelou disappointed with Common after collaboration
The poet Maya Angelou said she was “surprised and disappointed” to find that a track she appears on in a coming album by the rapper Common frequently uses a racial epithet, The New York Post reported.
Ms. Angelou, a National Medal of Arts winner and author of the memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is heard reciting a poem that she wrote on Common’s song “The Dreamer,” from his album The Dreamer, The Believer. In her verses, she says: “Dare to let your dreams reach beyond you / Know that history holds more than it seems / We are here alive today because our ancestors dared to dream.”
The lyrics performed by Common use an epithet heard frequently in rap and hip-hop songs, as when the rapper boasts to Kanye West, “I’m about to win the Grammys now.”
Ms. Angelou told The Post that she had “no idea” her contribution would appear on a song in which Common “used the ‘N’ word numerous times.” She added that the word was “vulgar and dangerous” and that she had respected him “because he wasn’t singing the line of least resistance.”
Common, who earlier this year became a target of conservative critics who said his lyrics glorified violence and convicted murderers, responded to The Post that Ms. Angelou “knows I do use the word.” He added: “I told her what ‘The Dreamer’ was about and what I wanted to get across to people. I wanted young people to hear this and feel like they could really accomplish their dreams.”
(Via ArtsBeat)
Ms. Angelou, a National Medal of Arts winner and author of the memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is heard reciting a poem that she wrote on Common’s song “The Dreamer,” from his album The Dreamer, The Believer. In her verses, she says: “Dare to let your dreams reach beyond you / Know that history holds more than it seems / We are here alive today because our ancestors dared to dream.”The lyrics performed by Common use an epithet heard frequently in rap and hip-hop songs, as when the rapper boasts to Kanye West, “I’m about to win the Grammys now.”
Ms. Angelou told The Post that she had “no idea” her contribution would appear on a song in which Common “used the ‘N’ word numerous times.” She added that the word was “vulgar and dangerous” and that she had respected him “because he wasn’t singing the line of least resistance.”
Common, who earlier this year became a target of conservative critics who said his lyrics glorified violence and convicted murderers, responded to The Post that Ms. Angelou “knows I do use the word.” He added: “I told her what ‘The Dreamer’ was about and what I wanted to get across to people. I wanted young people to hear this and feel like they could really accomplish their dreams.”
(Via ArtsBeat)
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