Lonnie Rashid Lynn, known by his stage name Common, is an American rapper, actor, and activist. He has received three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award. He debuted in 1992 with the album Can I Borrow a Dollar?, and gained wider critical acclaim with its follow-ups, Resurrection (1994) and One Day It'll All Make Sense (1997). He maintained an underground following into the late 1990s, and achieved his first mainstream success through his work and affiliation with the black music collective, Soulquarians.
After attaining his first major label record deal, he released his fourth and fifth albums, Like Water for Chocolate (2000) and Electric Circus (2002) to continued acclaim despite modest commercial response. In 2003, he won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song for his feature on Erykah Badu's single "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)". His sixth album, Be (2005) was released through Kanye West's GOOD Music label and reached both commercial success and critical acclaim, also receiving a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. His seventh album, Finding Forever (2007) became his first project to peak the Billboard 200 upon release, while a song from the album, "Southside" (featuring Kanye West) won Lynn's second Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. He would release his eighth album Universal Mind Control (2008) to mixed reception before departing GOOD and launching his own label imprint, Think Common Entertainment in 2011.
Lynn won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for his song "Glory" (with John Legend), from Selma (2014) where he co-starred as civil rights leader James Bevel. He has also acted in film such as Smokin' Aces (2006), Street Kings (2008), American Gangster (2007), Wanted (2008), Date Night (2010), Just Wright (2010), Happy Feet Two (2011), Run All Night (2015), John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), and Smallfoot (2018). In television, has also starred as Elam Ferguson in AMC western series Hell on Wheels from 2011 to 2014. He received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for the song "Letter to the Free" for the Netflix documentary 13th (2017) directed by Ava DuVernay. He made his Broadway debut acting in the play Between Riverside and Crazy (2023).
