Ye was the first rapper to ever openly admit to being self-conscious. It took 30 years of hip hop to reach that point. In the final verse of the overall self-awareness anthem “All Falls Down”, he openly critiques his materialistic nature by realising his compulsivity of acquiring expensive clothes and cars. It is all merely a facade though; neglected as a result are “a couple past-due bills” and the desire to “act like it’s all terrific.” He concludes the verse with the confession: “We all self-conscious, I’m just the first to admit it.” Ye would go on to be defined by the maximalism in his public life whether it be in fashion, cars, music or relationships. The early awareness so clearly displayed in one of the most prominent songs of his burgeoning career was relatively unheeded. Yet, it was a fascinating reflection. In a genre so often populated with the need to fit in to certain definitions, the mere declaration of one feeling self-conscious was brave. I trust Ye; he probably was the first to ever admit it.

Ye, obviously, was not the first to ever express feeling of self-consciousness. One prominent example had been displayed 10 years earlier by a fellow Chicagoan and longtime associate. A young Common producing his second album on a major label probably did not have the same worries as Ye. He probably did not possess fears of being overwhelmed by desires to indulge in luxury fashion and cars. I know he did have another worry of which his mention implies that he possessed self-consciousness. The worry is not the subject of an entire song. It does not even occupy the attention of an entire verse. Only in a couplet does Common give himself the space to express a fear widely experienced by men across the world. Common raps about male pattern baldness.

The rare instance is found in the final verse of “Thisisme”, his 1994 song about self-empowerment and self-acceptance. The preceding lines are about his perceived inability to make a career in music, ignoring his mother’s advice to pursue education and his realisation that he is “comin’ out of nowhere to go where.” Then, he says it. “Probably in about seven years, I won’t have no hair.”

I wonder where his estimation came from. Male pattern baldness is caused by hormones and genetics. His father, Lonnie Lynn, was bald during his adult life so maybe Common experienced awareness from him. Common was a young man at the time; he would have been 21 or 22 years old when “Thisisme” was recorded. His seven year estimation meant that he gave himself until he reached 30 before what he deemed as the inevitable happened. As a 19 year old in The Source, his first public appearance as part of their “Unsigned Hype” column, Common was seen sporting a low fade. He then seemingly never appeared without a form of headwear for the next 14 years. You can check. You will see pictures of Common sporting beanies, baseball caps, flat caps, newsboy caps and kufis. He was covering what was left, at first. At some point in time, maybe within those seven years, his reliance on hats would have transitioned into the need to cover what was gone. I know how it feels.

My dad has been baldheaded for my entire life. I know that losing his hair was a life-altering occasion for him because I heard iterations of the story throughout my childhood. He had started losing his hair by the time he was in his early 20s and it was mostly gone not too long afterwards. A picture hangs on the fridge in my family home of a young adult version of my dad at one of his birthday parties; he stares almost lifelessly into the camera while his receding hairline draws a highlight to his static facial features. My dad bravely held on to the remnant strands for as long as he could; my mum would joke that he had the hairstylings of a koala during their courting in his 30s. By the time I came of consciousness as a child, my dad accepted genetic defeat and had already shaved what was left. Growing up, I know that having no hair was something that caused my dad to feel some type of resentment. He would often use the adjective “bald” as a preface to any description he made of himself. It was almost as if having no hair was a substantial part of his entire identity.

My dad would console the worried expressions of my brother and I by claiming that baldness “skipped a generation” so it would only be our sons who would be next to experience the mental strain derived from an empty scalp. My teenaged life was subsequently spent reassured by my dad’s retrospectively baseless claim; my dad never knew his grandfather let alone his hairstyle. It was only when I reached 23 that I noticed a difference as my hair no longer had the ability to cover where it once had. I started pledging that I would shave it all off once I lost what I called the “tuft”; an increasingly triangular frontal section of my hair that is flanked by my receding hairline. However, hair loss was still not any matter of major cognitive attention for myself. That only began this year when I really noticed the difference.

As the shine of my dome becomes ever present under the thinning coverage, and my haircuts progressively involve less hair being cut due to natural relinquishment, I have had to face the same thoughts that were once possessed by Common, my dad and countless other men who go through the same experience. I, too, don hats when not needed and know — without any kind of doubt — that, in seven years, I will probably have no hair.

The line of “Thisisme” has been prominent in my mind ever since I first noticed the signs. It could be considered as almost a throwaway line; Common says it so quick as if to get it out the way. It is immediately followed by a joke that references hair loss commercials by the Hair Club for Men and Common claiming that he “come[s] off like a toupee.” His mere mention of the experience though is a rare poke of self-deprecation about natural hair loss which is otherwise absent in much hip hop. Common is not the only bald rapper but he could have been the first to describe it in a song as being out of his control. Onyx were a group symbolised by their bald heads but it was by choice and they proudly proclaimed it (Sticky Fingaz even details his head shaving method in the aptly-titled “Atak of da Bal-Hedz”). C-Bo called himself the “Bald Head Nut” but never the “Balding Head Nut”. 2Pac had so much charisma that one would not be remiss to not notice that he actually was bald. Neither of them — and perhaps no one else — ever described the process so nonchalantly described by Common.

By the time seven years had very much passed in Common’s life, he emerged with the bald head that he had predicted. He now proudly rocks the look now so it something that he grown to accept. It never really held him back though. Common is a major hip hop figure and even a movie star. That confidence managed to come back. It is an accomplishment; still to this day, the innocent men adorned with hair who are suddenly exposed to a process completely out of their control often desperately find methods to either delay or avoid it happening.

I look at myself in the mirror and can visualise how I might look with a bald head. Like Common predicted, I know it is coming. I have no desire to do anything but find some method of accepting the inevitability. As the KRS-One sample in the hook on “Thisisme” exclaims, I hope to also “love the way I am” as Common has shown he grew to do. If not, I can always be like Ye and at least act like it’s all terrific.