The poet Maya Angelou has criticised Common's use of the N-word. Angelou said she was "surprised and disappointed" at the rapper's language on a new track in which she appears.
"I had no idea that Common was using the piece we had done together on [a track] in which he also used the 'N-word' numerous times," Angelou told the New York Post. She was referring to the opening track on Common's new album, The Dreamer/The Believer.. Common is a huge fan of Angelou's and convinced her to make a rare hip-hop cameo, reciting one of her poems. "From Africa they lay in the bilge of slave ships," she reads. "And stood half naked on auction blocks/ and still they dreamed."
But Angelou's isn't the only voice on the track: Common is there too, rapping about "Ferrari testers, Armani dressers" and "exquisite thick bitches". "Walking on water, building my faith up," he continues, "Niggas with no heart, I'm the pace maker."
According to the New York Post, Angelou had no idea Common uses the N-word, which she calls "vulgar and dangerous" to black people. "I don't know why he chose to do that," she said. "I had never heard him use that [word] before. I admired him so because he wasn't singing the line of least resistance."
Common denied Angelou was offended. "She knows I do use the word," he claimed. "She knows that's part of me."
