{"id":2445793,"date":"2019-06-27T16:00:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T22:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=308606"},"modified":"2019-06-27T16:00:45","modified_gmt":"2019-06-27T22:00:45","slug":"aspen-ideas-fest-common-gets-real-and-real-vulnerable-in-let-love-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-ideas-fest-common-gets-real-and-real-vulnerable-in-let-love-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen Ideas Fest: Common gets real, and real vulnerable, in \u2018Let Love\u2019 performance"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"swift-gallery p402_hide\" readability=\"6.3476702508961\">\n<ul id=\"imageGallery-308606-67\" class=\"gallery list-unstyled\">\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-6-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-6-1024x657.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"b.ideas-atd-062819-6 |\" class=\"h-100\">\n<div class=\"caption\">\n<p>b.ideas-atd-062819-6<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-6-1024x657.jpg\" alt><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-7-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-7-1024x621.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"b.ideas-atd-062819-7 | Common on stage during his\" let performance at aspen ideas class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-2\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"7\">\n<p><strong>Common on stage during his &#8220;Let Love&#8221; performance at Aspen Ideas Fest.<\/strong><br \/>b.ideas-atd-062819-7<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-7-1024x621.jpg\" alt=\"Common on stage during his \" let performance at aspen ideas><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-8-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-8-1024x649.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"b.ideas-atd-062819-8 | Common performing at Aspen Ideas Festival on Wednesday\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-2\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"7\">\n<p><strong>Common performing at Aspen Ideas Festival on Wednesday<\/strong><br \/>b.ideas-atd-062819-8<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-8-1024x649.jpg\" alt=\"Common performing at Aspen Ideas Festival on Wednesday\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-10-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-10-1024x683.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"b.ideas-atd-062819-10 | I$REAL\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-2\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"7\">\n<p><strong>I$REAL<\/strong><br \/>b.ideas-atd-062819-10<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-10-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"I$REAL\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-thumb=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-4-150x150.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-4-1024x660.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"b.ideas-atd-062819-4 | George Packer\" class=\"h-100\" readability=\"-2\">\n<div class=\"caption\" readability=\"7\">\n<p><strong>George Packer<\/strong><br \/>b.ideas-atd-062819-4<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row no-gutters h-100\">\n<div class=\"col my-auto\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/b.ideas-atd-062819-4-1024x660.jpg\" alt=\"George Packer\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"caption-toggle\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-ideas-fest-common-gets-real-and-real-vulnerable-in-let-love-performance\/#\" class=\"show-captions\">Show Captions<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-ideas-fest-common-gets-real-and-real-vulnerable-in-let-love-performance\/#\" class=\"hide-captions\">Hide Captions<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Part concert, part confessional one-man show and part workshop, Common\u2019s hybrid \u201cLet Love\u201d performance in Harris Hall on Wednesday night brought the hip-hop artist, activist and author\u2019s gospel of \u201cradical love\u201d to the Aspen Ideas Fest.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone in the capacity crowd expecting a straightforward concert or talk about his new book, \u201cLet Love Have the Last Word,\u201d was in for a surprise. Instead, they experienced an earnest and extremely vulnerable 80-minute personal journey. Common bracketed the evening with stories of two late-night phone calls from his daughter about whether or not he was a good dad. In between, with monologues and spoken word poetry, song and audience participation, he sketched out the experiences with service, faith, frustration and forgiveness that brought him to his daily practice of love.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome people ask me, \u2018Why are you always talking about love, Common?\u2019. I say, \u2018Why not. Why not choose love?\u2019\u201d he told the crowd. \u201cI\u2019m not talking about the mushy, flowery love that I do sometimes. I\u2019m talking about a love that\u2019s bolder. A love that will reshape culture. It\u2019s radical love.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Moving from a seat at a wooden table to center-stage, he talked about experiences that shaped the concept for him including the trauma of being molested as a child and choosing forgiveness over vengeance. He\u2019d repressed the memory, he explained, until he was on-set filming the 2018 movie \u201cThe Tale\u201d about a repressed sexual assault.<\/p>\n<p>In his monologue and bursts of poetry, Common also detailed a rough break-up, seeing his mother through a scary surgery, having a bully steal his bike as a kid and drawing inspiration from death row inmates. He guided the crowd through a mindfulness breathing exercise and he invited one audience member on-stage to tell a personal story of forgiveness.<\/p>\n<p>And, yes, the evening culminated in a 30-minute musical performance with a four-piece live band and a crowd-pleasing set list of hits like \u201cThe Light,\u201d \u201cI Used to Love H.E.R.,\u201d and an astounding extended freestyle. He capped the concert portion of the night with the Oscar-winning \u201cGlory\u201d and a new song, from his forthcoming album \u201cLet Love,\u201d titled \u201cGod Is Love.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Faith and prayer, he told the crowd, undergird his practice of radical love and keep him sane through our often-insane moment in history.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m often asked, \u2018Why do you keeping an optimistic view in these times when things are so divisive and so crazy?\u2019\u201d he explained. \u201cI believe that God is greater than the government and God is greater than any political agenda and any political figure. With that in mind I\u2019m able to trust and surrender and be an active participant in life.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Common wasn\u2019t the only hip-hop artist on the dais this week. A panel Monday about connecting at-risk or \u201copportunity\u201d youth to the workforce featured former White House domestic policy advisor Melody Barnes and Prudential\u2019s Latta Reddy, but opened with Denver-based rapper I$REAL \u2014 an alum of the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions \u2014 who played a bass-heavy trap beat from the conference room speakers and rhymed of his Aspen Ideas experience \u201cwith leaders that come with ideas, come with success\/Never stop and don\u2019t settle for less.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>At the outset of a Wednesday panel about writing on rural America, moderator James Fallows asked the audience members how many of them had read Tara Westover\u2019s \u201cEducated.\u201d Nearly every hand went up.<br \/>While her bestselling memoir about growing up in a survivalist Mormon family has gripped readers, Westover said she\u2019s not interested in correcting readers\u2019 false assumptions about her: \u201cPeople come up to me and say all kinds of things about my book and my family and the way they imagine those relationships will evolve going forward, but I imagine \u2018That has a lot to do with you, not me.\u2019 But that\u2019s great, that\u2019s what storytelling is for. \u2026 Very few times have people come up to me and I say, \u2018No, that\u2019s not it.\u2019\u201d<\/li>\n<li>George Packer, the National Book Award winner and author of \u201cOur Man,\u201d a new biography of American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, concluded that the late Holbrooke couldn\u2019t have brokered a better nuclear deal with Iran than the one John Kerry and President Obama did before President Trump backed out of it. \u201cThere was no better deal to be had,\u201d Packer said at a panel Tuesday night. And he suggested that the Trump administration\u2019s claim that they could have \u2013 or still will \u2013 get \u201ca better deal\u201d shows a failure to understand the basics of diplomacy: \u201cWhat good diplomats can do is get into the skin of the person on the other side of the table, not in order to sympathize with them but just to understand.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:atravers@aspentimes.com\">atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-ideas-fest-common-gets-real-and-real-vulnerable-in-let-love-performance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>b.ideas-atd-062819-6 Common on stage during his &#8220;Let Love&#8221; performance at Aspen Ideas Fest.b.ideas-atd-062819-7 Common performing at Aspen Ideas Festival on Wednesdayb.ideas-atd-062819-8 I$REALb.ideas-atd-062819-10 George Packerb.ideas-atd-062819-4 Show CaptionsHide Captions Part concert, part confessional one-man show and part workshop, Common\u2019s hybrid \u201cLet Love\u201d performance in Harris Hall on Wednesday night brought the hip-hop artist, activist and author\u2019s gospel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 11:25:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}