Serena Williams and Common joined forces to engage in a though-provoking conversation for ESPN’s ‘Undefeated In-Depth.’

Released today, their “interview” was shot to offer fans of the pair fresh insight into their lives, world view and the experiences which shaped them.

Speaking frankly about the racism she’s faced during her career, Williams also revealed that she was aware of the pressure she  faced to represent the African-American community on the world stage.

That isn’t all.

Hit the play button to catch the must-see conversation and its gripping talking points below…

On self-hatred:

A lot of black people, unfortunately, especially growing up, they are discouraged or [told] you don’t look good or your hair is not pretty or your skin’s too dark or your lips are too big — not anymore, but you know, back in the day. We were always told to love ourselves. Something that my dad always did with us was he always said you have to know your history. And, if you know your past, you can have a great future … There’s no other race, to me, that has such a tough history for hundreds and hundreds of years — only the strong survive, so we’re the strongest and the most mentally tough, and I’m really proud to wear this color every single day of my life.

On dealing with racism:

I do feel like there’s hope. Not everyone is a bad person. The majority of people are good, it’s just some — it’s those few that poison. I also think that it’s so important for society to also not focus on the negative. If you sit around and only talk about negative stuff and negative things and what happened and who got shot, it almost puts that out there and you get that in return. We gotta put out a positive story.

On inspiring the next generation of black athletes:

Everything I’ve done is because of the help of my sister. When I started, I never thought about, ‘I want to open up doors for black athletes and then to female athletes, and just growing the bigger picture to minority athletes.’ That wasn’t what I started out to do and I ended up on this path and people started looking up to me, and it was different because I’m just doing me … I didn’t even know that they would want to be influenced by me.

I met Simone Manuel, in particular, and she said she was influenced by me. Not only her, just all athletes just across the board, they consider me great and I still can’t seem to swallow that pill. ‘Cause I’m just me … I’m fierce on the court, but I just never really changed who I am. So when they come up to me and see me and they get so excited, I’m like, ‘Really?’ Because I thought you were really awesome and you were really cool.

Your thoughts?