The Real Life Diet of Common, Who Needs Good Vegan Cheese on His Pizza

When it comes to self-care—whether mind, body, or soul—multi-award-winning rapper and actor Common has written the book on it. Thanks to a vegan diet and a life lived with gratitude, the 52-year-old seems to be aging backwards. And his voice has continued to ring throughout hip-hop, with the release of The Auditorium Vol. 1 with Pete Rock over the summer. “It's like, man, this music is actually splashing on the people in a way that I hadn't felt my music do in a long time,” he told GQ.

The Chicago native also recently lent his talent to Listerine's Whoa Collection, which is aimed at closing the diversity gap in dentistry through art, music, and community. Common spoke with GQ about the initiative, his evolving wellness journey, and why good vegan cheese is so important.

For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and other high performers about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.

Common: I believe no matter how much things advance with technology, people still relate to heart. People still relate to love. People have wanted love throughout history, and art is something distinct. I've listened to Earth, Wind, and Fire my whole life, and some of that music was made before I was born. If I’m reading a James Baldwin poem—these things last forever because they have a soul to them.

It’s being humble enough to know I don't know everything. So that means I seek and try to learn, get better, and grow. As I evolve as a person, my music and my art evolves. If you look at any album or music that I've done, it's always a reflection of where I am at that point in my life and what I think is fresh. I want something new in my life and to create new good things.

I think people have been able to grow into some of the things that I've done. They might not have liked it before. I've had people come to me like, “I didn’t used to listen to your music, and then I turned 30 and I was like, yo, this is it.”  With God's grace and my pursuit of just being an artist who does it for the love and wanting to put some great energy and good spirit out there, it's allowed me to grow and have a career.

From the beginning, my first conversation was about increasing our oral health care for our communities—for Black communities—and engaging more people to become Black dentists and us to support more Black dentists. That's very important to me because taking care of ourselves is one of the things that I feel like, it's part of the revolution. It's part of changing our trajectory or changing our conditions. One of the most important things is for us to care for ourselves: from oral health care, emotional health care, physical health care to spiritual health care. So for me to align with Listerine and the Whoa Collection was just another element that I could bring to our community in a way that I believe is easy to digest, is relatable, and could still be a component to us being better. That's what I'm about.

I want to say, first, to anybody who's reading, I didn't start off knowing anything or even having the desire to be like, “Hey, I'm about to be healthy and take care of myself.” I didn't know what that was. I grew up in Chicago and that means I was eating everything, drinking at an early age, and staying out as late as I wanted to. But the steps were taken because I wanted to feel good in life. I want to feel good so that when I do have those great moments, I can actually enjoy them. I saw the difference in myself when I started taking care of myself.

So that's what made me want to take the next step. I'm going to first remove these things from my diet. Okay, damn. I feel better and I sound clearer on my records. Okay, what's the next step? I started doing some physical training. It was simple things because I ain't trying to be a super buff dude. I just want to take care of myself, feel fit, and feel well.

I also saw that the things I was doing in my life when it came to relationships and self-worth, I needed to work on. That's where therapy came in, and that’s mental health. So all these things I started to put together and see how they improved my life, and I was like, I got to share this with our people because we deal with a lot of different things. We got to deal with a lot of different obstacles and challenges. Throughout the centuries and generations, we've seen us overcome and prevail in so much. So the more tools we got, the greater we'll soar. That's why I felt like it was my duty to make sure that anything I knew, I was going to Harriet Tubman and bring it back to the people.

When I first started being vegan, bro, that food was not good. It was one of those things where I was like, I have to gut it out because I'm doing it for a different reason—and I love eating good food. It became a rare discipline for me to eat some of the vegan foods that were available. At one point, I went back to fish, and then I went back to vegan. I've seen things go from only having access to vegetarian foods in New York and California to, now, I can be in Greenville, South Carolina, getting juices and health shots.

Within the past 10 years, I started seeing things really evolve. It would be places where I could take non-vegetarians and they'd be like, “Man, this food is good.” I took my daughter to a restaurant and didn't tell her it was vegetarian. And she's like, “I love this.” It was lasagna and veggie meat. I told her that's vegetarian and she was like, “What?” So, it's improved in that way. When I first told my mom I was vegetarian, she was like, “What are you doing?” Then, she wanted to cook for me. She started cooking, but she wasn't seasoning it like she would regular stuff and it was just bland. I said, “Ma, you gotta put the oomph in it and freak the season.” She started doing that and making delicious vegetarian meals, and now delicious vegan meals.

The foods, the restaurants, and the access have improved. I go to a dope vegetarian Mexican food place out here called Jajaja. I go to a place called Spicy Moon. It's different cuisines and vegan joints that are really good.

The day starts with gratitude and time with me and God, just thanking God for the day. Then I start with scriptures that I love to read that reinforce why I'm here, what I'm purposed to do, and equip me with things that I need to go through the day. I would encourage anybody—it doesn't have to be a religious thing—to just have mantras or scripture that applies to what you want to be and who you are.

Before I work out, I get a green drink, which is like my coffee. It contains mostly vegetables because of what I was told by the great doctor Tracey Rico. Those vegetables help with your gut health, which is where a lot of disease starts, and it also regenerates your cells, which is for people who want to look good.

I go get my workout in. Like I said, I'm not trying to be the biggest, buff dude. I want to be able to move around, be flexible, and feel good. I won't eat until later. My breakfast is usually some fruit. I love parfaits and granola. I like vegan sausage and they have vegan eggs, I’ll try that sometimes. Avocado toast is something that I get to a lot. From there, it's more juice. Then I’ll eat lunch. Most of the time, it’s not too heavy. Dinnertime is usually where it varies. Some days, I want to eat heavily, and some days, I’m still eating a little clean.

I love my vegan desserts. I don’t even want to call those cheat days. Those are just days that I choose to eat those things. I like French fries even though I can’t eat them every day. Fried foods don’t serve my body well like that, so I balance that out.

I found a balance and it works for me. I think one of the keys to taking care of self is being aware of certain general things that just won’t be good for your body. Smoking cigarettes? It ain't gonna happen. There is no benefit to your body. Certain things you could put into your life and say, I'll do this a couple of days and then make sure you don't do that in excess. Alcohol is something that could be abused. Somewhere in my family line, alcoholism has been there. That’s something that I had to make sure I reined in, but I still can enjoy my wine and time.If I felt it was taking me down, I wouldn't do it at all.

It’s knowing that stuff, knowing some of your family history, but also saying, I'm going to change the stuff that ain't good in my family history, so I can stop the cycle. And that's what part of it has been for me. I love Leon's Barbecue, and I love Harold's Chicken. To be able to stop those things shows me that I got power. I got power, and we all got power. If I can stop doing that, then I can stop doing some of the other things that weren't going to fit me.

At some point in my life, I realized my voice is my instrument and I have to take care of that. If I want to perform and record throughout my whole life, then I have to take care of that instrument. One of the first changes I saw when I stopped eating dairy was my voice became clearer. It was less clogged and less mucus and stuff like that. The things I do to take care of it are vocal exercises. I've been blessed to do a Broadway play and I had to work on breathing and vocal exercises. I apply those things when I'm doing performances. Also, just taking care of myself. Not drinking too much. I don't go on stage after drinking a lot because I wouldn't get the best out of my voice.

Putting good things in my body is, in itself, allowing my voice to get better because it ain't just coming from the vocal cords. It's your breath that comes all the way through the body. The more help you get in your body, the stronger your voice will be.

Man, I love pizza. I get a vegan pizza. First of all, you got to have good vegan cheese because if you don't, then it’s like, I don't even want to waste my time with this. I like mushrooms and green peppers—not too many green peppers.