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 The Chicago native, who won a 2015 Academy Award for best
song "Glory" from DuVernay's 1960s civil rights drama "Selma,"
said it was important for him to work on her latest project.
"I think it's very, very special. She is like one of those
creative, passionate, intelligent beings and visionaries and is
committed. So I'm like always saying, ok, what can we do?,"
Common said in an interview.
The documentary argues that although slavery was officially
abolished in the United States 150 years ago, it is still alive
in the form of mass incarceration that disproportionately
affects black people.
The film, which uses television footage, music and interviews
with former prisoners, politicians and academics, owes its title
to the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which ended
slavery in 1865.
Common released in November his eleventh album, "Black America
Again," which he hopes will spark a retelling of the black American
experience and a past that includes lynchings, discrimination and
other injustices.
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The album includes the song "Letter to the Free" which was used in
DuVernay's documentary.
"I had written the first verse and then I watched the film and then
I continued to work on the second verse. And she and I went back and
forth as far as some of the ideas and what we wanted to hear in the
second verse," he said.
"13TH" is playing on Netflix. "Black American Again" debuted at
number 25 on the Billboard 200 charts.
(Reporting by Reuters Television; Editing by Darren Schuettler)
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