DX: What are your thoughts about artists who strictly record for the purpose of selling ringtones?
C: For me, a lot of rappers have come from places where they didn’t get to appreciate the artform. They didn’t feel Hip Hop when it was just so pure and it was like a thing of just fun. It wasn’t about business. Now they approach Hip Hop from a business perspective. It’s much more than that. You gotta let the art be the art and let the business take care of that afterward. Of course, I’m not one who approaches music and goes into the studio saying, “I’m going to make this so it can be a corporate song. This is going to make this person’s ringtone.” I’m not really a supporter of that, but if a person chooses to do it and that’s what they want their career to be, that’s for them. I’m thinking more from a longer term and just being an artist and an actor.

DX: Do people know that you write children’s books?
C: Nah, they don’t.

DX: Where did that come from?
C: I have a daughter that’s 10 years old. Also, I love the effect that music and art has on the children. I love the results of seeing children singing songs, knowing that it really influences them and impacts their lives. I was like, “Man, let me do these children’s books that I feel could be in a language and be something they would be interested in.” I also felt like children’s books would be lessons that adults could get. I was taking stories that could be adult stories, but putting them in children’s form. [I did] love lessons, lessons about not losing yourself in love. But I put it in a children’s story. That’s something that I gotta be reminded of sometimes.

DX: Are you actually doing the long-rumored Justice League of America movie?
C: I can’t really talk about that situation, to be honest. I wish I could, but I can’t.

DX: That sounds like a possibility if you can’t talk about it…
C: [Common raises his brow] You’re intelligent.

DX: You can talk about the Common Ground Foundation, right?
C: Hip hop is definitely a great communicator of art. Kids respond to Hip Hop. I respond to Hip Hop. Nationalities just respond to Hip Hop all over the world. When you say Hip Hop, it’s not only music; it’s a culture. We use all these attractive things about hip hop to educate the youth. Our premise is to empower them, to teach them about health, self-love, educate them academically and just [teach] them about community and entrepreneurship. Some of the ways we do that is through Hip Hop. They create their own videos, expressive ways for them to do it. My children’s books, I think, can teach them, too. Actually, some music that hip hop artists do are ways of teaching. I’ve learned a lot through artists like KRS-ONE and Rakim.