LL Cool J

One Liner: Don't Call It a Comeback!  I Been Here for Years!

Poster Position: 4

Thoughts:  LL Cool J, baby!  Ladies Love Cool James!  Old bad ass right here.  Before all the acting, this guy was one of the original rappers who tried to turn the genre into a popular thing, doing real rap but then also doing some love songs and tender stuff.  Surprisingly, he's only 48, but has been rapping since childhood.  According to Wikipedia, he was the first hip hop act to go on American Bandstand.  He is also in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He was one of the first artists ever signed to Def Jam, and his first album (1985's Radio) is a classic. Which means he would have been 17 when that came out, which is insane.  It has those old school beats that are pretty spare, lot of drum machine, without much in the way of samples.  This was one of Rick Rubin's first production jobs (along with the Beastie's License to Ill and Run DMC's Raisin' Hell, pretty awesome resume starter).  The hot singles from this first album were "I Need a Beat," "I Can't Live Without My Radio," and the biggest one, "Rock the Bells."

This one had a lot more production on it than the other tracks, and I think that added to its popularity. That intro is the best part.  If you don't kind of want to punch the air sideways and yell along with it, then you are missing out.

Literally, the first review I did on this site was the Kings of the Mic Tour, which was freaking BAD ASS!  But as you can see from that review, I thought LL spent a little too much time macking on the ladies instead of just rocking the mic and bringing the heat.  But he still sounds good and looks good.

As popular as Radio was, his next album Bigger and Deffer (1987) is his best selling one, which spawned hits with songs like "I'm Bad," and the love ballad/rap hybrid "I Need Love."

However, because the world of streaming music is still sometimes a big fat pile of elephant turd, this album (and his next big hit album) is not available to stream on Spotify.  Why?  I don't know. Someone at his old label is an a-hole.  But this album sold more than 3 million copies in the U.S.  Big hit.  The next album was Walking with a Panther (1989), which had "Goin' Back to Cali," which is still one of his best tracks of all time.

That intro!  So freaking money!  That bass!  That video of him driving around in his convertible! Those girls dancing!  Man I wanted to see up their skirts when I was 13!  "I wanna do this Brutus but I don't wanna pay!"  Classic.  Again, this album not available to jam on Spotify, which ought to be an act of war by the Swedes or Smurfs or whoever owns that company.

Then, at album number 4, the one that broke it all wide open.  Your mom freaking knows a song from that album, it was (and still is) everywhere.  This was 1990's Mama Said Knock You Out, which sold over 2 million copies and won LL a Grammy.  The album is full of classics - "Boomin' System," "Around the Way Girl," "Farmers Blvd," and, or course, the title track that everybody knows.

Just one of the most perfect rap packages.  Great beat ("take the funky drummer and give it back to James!"), catchy and memorable chorus, excellent video, solid beef/diss.  Wikipedia says he got the idea for the song from his grandma: "LL Cool J said in his autobiography that the idea for the song came from a discussion with his grandmother. He had said to his grandmother that he felt that he couldn't survive as a rapper now that gangsta rap was popular and he was being dissed by several up-and-coming rappers. She responded, 'Oh baby, just knock them out!'"  That is great.

His next album has one of the weirdest metaphors for sex that I've ever heard, but I bought this CD in college and would blare it in my dorm room, because the beat and offset delivery is so freaking dope.  This is "Pink Cookies in a Plastic Bag Getting Crushed by Buildings."

Soak up that salty ass beat, just deep and smooth as hell.  The rest of this album is pretty forgettable, with "How I'm Comin'" and "Back Seat" ("back seat of my jeep, a swingin' episode!") the other best singles, but no one is really going to remember 14 Shots to the Dome (1993).  Pretty much just repeated that same song until my roommate told me to can it.

The next album was my LL Cool J album of choice for years, I guess it still might be.  You've likely never heard of it, but it came out my sophomore year of college, when I was still living in the dorm, and we played this disc eight trillion times.  Seriously, my memory is waking up to this disc, mixing my first vodka sprite to this disc, playing NHL '94 to this disc, and then finally turning it off so that we could go out.  The two big hits from this album showcase the smooth side of LL, "Doin' It" and "Loungin."  Here is the latter, which I bought as a remixed single as well because people used to actually buy physical singles a million years ago and I thought it would get the sorority girls dancing.  P.S. truth.  This is that remix.

The original was tight as crap too, with a super cool beat, this spectral echo dancing on the clouds while the bass bounced down low.  Here is that original version, if you want to compare the two.

Album also had ""I Shot Ya," "Mr. Smith," "Hollis to Hollywood," so many good memories tied up in hearing these songs again.  This disc went 2x platinum, so I guess it was actually more popular than I thought.

Then, I just stopped listening to the guy.  From looking over the next albums, the only songs I recall are "Phenomenon" and (the actually solid) "4,3,2,1" from 1997's Phenomenon, "Imagine That" from 2000's G.O.A.T., "Luv U Better" from 2002's 10, "Headsprung" from 2004's The DEFinition, nothing from 2006's Todd Smith, nothing from 2008's Exit 13, and nothing from 2013's Authentic.  I just tried listening to Authentic and it is bad stuff.  A bunch of collaborations with odd people (Fitz and the Tantrums, Travis Barker, Tom Morello, Brad Paisley, Eddie Van Halen) can't save this from the used CD bin.  Er, I guess since it came out in 2013, then the deleted items folder on your hard drive.

Funny thing is, I just read an interview of Lin-Manuel Miranda where he talked about meeting LL after one of his shows, and I found it pretty cool (even if it flies in the face of my experience listening to this stuff).  He said: "LL Cool J was a real interesting one. I'd met LL before he came, because I had a friend who was on that NCIS show. I remember asking him at the time, 'Are you going to make any new music?' And he said to me – this is a great quote and it's always sort of stayed with me – 'I don't want to make something that isn't a classic.' But the way he said it was, 'I want to work in marble.' That really stuck with me. So when he came to the show, I said, 'I tried to work in marble, sir.'"  To the extent that story is true, I think it is cool that Miranda remembered their earlier meeting enough to say that. Pretty boss move.  However, I don't think that anything LL has made since 1995 could be considered classic.

That being said, I'd absolutely go back and watch him play this stuff again.  He's a master, and unless there is a serious conflict, I can't pass up another chance to see him in action.

Although, just before I published this, I went back to the ACL poster to see if any new bands have been added to the lineup (answer: yes!) and when I checked, I see that now LL is listed as being "feat. DJ Z-Trip," which sounds like some bullshit.  I don't want some new DJ trying to mix things up when I want to hear classic Cool J.  However, to potentially assuage my reluctance, Wikipedia tells me that "As of 2012, he has also been featured as hip-hop legend LL Cool J's touring DJ in shows that have been described as so exemplary that the "crowd can barely handle the greatness,"" so maybe this will be amazing.