“My little daughter started nursery school.”
That was a line Common delivered in his song “Cold Blooded,” off his 2000 album “Like Water for Chocolate.”
Now his daughter Omoye has graduated from college, Howard University, in fact, and the rapper talked about how solid their relationship is these days.
But it wasn’t always like that, because at one point Omoye said she felt abandoned by her superstar father, and they attended therapy sessions to work things out.
That was something Common spoke about on a recent episode of Jada Pinkett Smith‘s “Red Table Talk,” since he addressed it in his book “Let Love Have the Last Word: A Memoir.”
“It was a late-night call, so I thought I was getting a call like, I’m a cool dad,” he explained. “It was two in the morning. I had to start a film the next day, so I said, ‘I’m going to call you back. Let’s talk tomorrow.'” And she called me right back like, ‘Yo, you don’t even care. You ain’t even see where I was at.’ And it really shook me for a minute. I was like, ‘What are you talking about? I do care.’”
“Eventually, that conversation turned into her saying you weren’t there for me, you didn’t fight for me as a father,” he added. “It made me feel defensive. I was hurt, and I was mad too.”
But Common said he eventually got over the hurt and learned to acknowledge his daughter’s feelings, even if he didn’t fully understand them. “I said, ‘Look, you’re right, I didn’t fight,’ and I had to acknowledge that. I just needed to listen to her.”
He also alluded to Omoye’s mother contributing to her negative opinion of her dad and making it difficult for them to see each other. Plus, Common said it was Omoye’s idea for the two of them to see a therapist, because she wanted their issues resolved before his book came out.
