Rapper Common: Should he be disinvited from Obama poetry event?
(Read article summary)Rapper Common is set to attend a 'Celebration of American Poetry' at the White House Wednesday, but Common has had harsh words for President George W. Bush in the past.
Should President Obama have invited the rapper Common to perform at Wednesday’s White House poetry event? Some people are upset that he’s scheduled to appear. Common, that is, not Mr. Obama – it’s OK for the nation’s chief executive to go despite the fact someone may speak in (gasp!) iambic tetrameter.
The event is titled “Celebration of American Poetry,” and it’s part of a White House series of cultural evenings loosely structured around music. The series has already included performances devoted to country, classical, and Motown.
Common – aka Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr. – is a Chicago native who is kind of a rising thing in hip hop, but his lyrics aren’t always of the “My little horse must think it queer/To stop without a farmhouse near” variety.
