Jack Harlow’s “Common Ground” Lyrics Meaning
There are quite a few co-writers of Jack Harlow’s “Common Ground”. Amongst them are the tracks four producers who are as follows:
- Angel Lopez
- Mike Wavvs
- Niko The Great
- Jay-Soul
We also have Joi Marshall, Diyelle Reed and Tonya Kelly, the members of a 1990s’ R&B group known as Jade, whose 1994 track When Will I See You Again (Intro) is interpolated into “Common Ground”, which itself was released on 28 April 2023.
Then finally there is Emanuel Officer (who is also seemingly credited due to the aforementioned sample) and Jack Harlow himself, with this song being featured on the latter’s third studio album, “Jackman”. In fact this is the opening track of said LP, which is a product of Generation Now and Atlantic Records.
Lyrics of “Common Ground”
Perhaps this song can be taken as Jack’s way of establishing that he isn’t a culture vulture, i.e. a White person who emulates Black culture for monetary gain.
Such criticisms are known to be levied against Caucasian rappers, especially the likes of Harlow, who experience notable success and also have a standing within the African-American hip-hop community.
And it really is a touchy topic for a number of reasons, as displayed by that recent beef between Eminem and Nick Cannon.
So Jack’s approach to the general subject at hand is to criticize the likes of White suburbanites who imitate inner-city African-American culture without actually knowing anything about it. These are the types who ‘grow up to be rap journalists’ – i.e. critics of the genre – but in actuality “never seen the ‘hood”, as in the challenging communities from which most rappers trace their origins.
Or viewed from a different angle, Harlow has more or less concluded that if you’re a middle- to upper-class White American, it’s nigh impossible to identify with the average Black American. So those from the former background who do go about speaking Ebonics, twerking, acting gangsta, etc. in his eyes would be akin to culture vultures, let’s say cleaving to Black culture without actually empathizing with or understanding the people who originated it.
Or put otherwise, the “common ground” that such Whites may claim exists between themselves and African-Americans, according to Harlow, “ain’t that common”, i.e. more a figment of their imaginations than reality.
