LL Cool J has been a celebrity in the US for years. And, on a universal level, one of the most important and decisive figures in the history of hip hop, as well as the longest-running successful MC in the genre. Born as James Todd Smith in New York in 1968, he lived a turbulent childhood, not so much due to economic circumstances – he grew up in a middle-class environment in the Queens neighborhood – but because he had experienced very serious episodes of domestic violence. At the age of four, he witnessed how his father almost killed his mother and grandfather at gunpoint. After the divorce, the exit was not much better for him: his mother’s next boyfriend subjected him to constant physical and mental abuse. But the man popularly known as LL Cool J (short for “LOL”), who is now known as LL Cool J, is a man who has been a part of the music industry for over 10 years. Ladies Love Cool Jamesthe nickname given to him by fellow rapper Mikey D), has never dwelled on this tragic part of his biography. On the contrary, he has invested almost all his energies in celebrating how rap saved him from all that.
By the late 1970s, hip hop culture had already exploded on the streets of the Bronx and was reaching Queens, and little James was in the right place at the right time. At the age of 9, he started rapping and the world became a wonderful place for him. “That whole period, up until the mid-eighties, was very crazy and fun. We were young people moving around New York with big dreams. It was all about love, love for artistic creation. That’s the main thing, that’s where I come from,” the musician explains enthusiastically via video conference. “From there, we can do fast forward And here we are, 40 years later. I’m still relevant all over the world, and it’s fascinating because no one has ever done this for so long at this level before. With all the changes in sound and style that have happened all over the planet, I’ve also been able to evolve, and I’m very happy about that.”
From these words, one can infer a deceptive sense of egotism that should be clarified. In the interview with ICON, LL Cool J does not use the typical speech of a bully rapper who throws darts at his rivals, nor does he appear particularly haughty. He does not make headlines either. killerHe makes an effort to speak quite a few words of Spanish, is attentive and smiling (the word he uses the most, by far, is “fun”), and is generally very friendly. good vibes, pulling out phrases that can be understood as promotional clichés but that also reveal themselves as significant when it comes to defining the character. At a specific moment, the journalist will see in his webcam how this rap heavyweight, also in physical size (almost 1.90 meters tall and eighty-something kilos) goes out of focus and returns with a hamburger for breakfast. At no time does he take off his sunglasses.
From the golden years of Radio to speculate on the withdrawal
If we had to highlight the most important thing LL Cool J has done, we would have to go back to 1984, when he became one of the first artists to sign with Rick Rubin’s legendary Def Jam label. There he released his debut single, I Need A Beatand a year later, a first album that made history, Radio. With him it is said that the pioneering phase that laid the foundations of hip hop ended, Old Skooland began the New Skool and what is considered the golden age of the genre. It was a critical and commercial success, selling a million records, and was also the first album released by Def Jam, which also made Rick Rubin known as one of the most prestigious producers on the planet.
Rubin and LL Cool J began their journey together and took the music industry by storm, albeit in the company of a dream cast completed by the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC, who started out on Def Jam around the same time. In 1986 and 1987, the trio of aces shared the bill on an equally historic tour, the Raising Hell Tour“Of course there was rivalry between the three of us!” admits the MC from Queens, “but the important thing is to highlight that we were always friends and never had problems. Of course, I am still competitive, I want to continue being the best and the one who has the most impact on people. For me it is still important to be number one. I still care that my music is heard everywhere, to speak with media like yours, to be heard in Spain. I like competition because it is the essence of hip hop, 100%.”
The artist says that when he started, rap was a despised genre, but then everything evolved to become more pop and commercial. “What can never change is the love we put into this music,” he emphasizes, surely to defend himself from the accusations he received of losing his authenticity after the publication of Walking With A Pantherhis third album, in 1989, which was criticized for its excess of saccharine ballads. Luckily for him, Mama Said Knock You Outin 1990, returned the favor of critics and became the most successful of his career, with more than two million records sold.
Since then, he has not stopped recording regularly, but, after the publication of his thirteenth album, Authenticin 2013, he announced his retirement from music, something that seemed real during the eleven years that passed until the appearance of The FORCE. Now he retracts those statements. “I really don’t know if I was joking or making fun of him when I said that, but the truth is that art is not like a normal job, one never retires from being an artist. I still love what I do, it is still very fun for me, it is still important to my heart,” he says in a forceful spanglish.
Rapper, actor and presenter
What is certain is that this happened then is that he began to devote more time to an acting career that he had also been developing in parallel since 1985. He confesses that his favorite role is that of the gangster he played in In Too Deep (released in Spain in 2001 as Game of Confidences), although the one that gave him more popularity was the one he developed in the series Navy: Criminal Investigation and NCIS: Los Angeleswhere he has been working intermittently between 2008 and 2022, in addition to having served as presenter of the Grammy Awards ceremony for five consecutive years, between 2012 and 2016.
In a way, his case may be similar to that of Steve Van Zandt, who is best known to a considerable audience for his roles in The Sopranos and Lilyhammer than as the guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. “That’s kind of fun and actually pretty cool,” the rapper says. “Now I get to have the audience that discovered me there experience my music, but sometimes we put so much focus on trying to impress the younger generation that we forget about our original fans. There are a lot of people who have followed my entire career, and that audience is still very important.”
We almost forgot that LL Cool J gave this interview to promote The FORCEan excellent comeback album for which he admits he had to relearn how to rap. “It’s not that I lost the flow. It’s like Prince playing guitar or Mick Jagger singing on stage, that’s there, you have it, but, of course, I’ve worked hard on polishing and refreshing my style. That’s the main thing, that it’s super fresh, that it stays up to date and that you have a good time doing it,” he says. And he also stresses that he didn’t want to return trying to co
nform to trends, but also not by going back to what he did in his past. “I prioritized new ideas, because I always think about the now and that it lasts in the future. It’s all about truth and fun. Meeting people who interest me and moving something, moving souls. There was no particular message beyond giving the collaborators the opportunity to share this musical experience, letting them feel that energy, and I hope I achieved that.”
Be careful, because this cast of collaborators to which he refers is notorious and large, almost a collective vindication of the history of hip hop in the form of a cast. all starThe rapper gives a lot of credit to Q-Tip (of the ultra-influential A Tribe Called Quest) as a producer, but also includes Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Nas and Busta Rhymes. “Yeah, there are some really big superstars on the record, and they’re all my friends, but also new artists, like Don Pablito, J. SAND and Mad Squabiz. It was really just getting people together that I’ve heard and thought were good. What’s good to me, I want on my record, regardless of what their name is,” the musician says.
The influence of Basquiat and a statue in Queens
Despite emphasizing its position in the present, there is also some nostalgic concession on this new album, such as the song Basquiat Energy. “It is inspired by the movie Downtown 81which starred Jean Michel Basquiat,” the musician reveals. “We wanted to create the illusion that the song had come from that place at that time. We have recorded a great video, very visual, which will appear at some point. I love Basquiat’s art.”
Although they were contemporaries, neighbours and, in a way, stage partners, LL Cool J says that he never met the painter, who died in 1988, but that he always felt very close to him. “We crossed paths when I was starting out, we had friends in common, like Fab Five Freddy, and I also had a lot of dealings with his sisters,” he recalls. It was a New York that has changed considerably since then. “It’s a completely different city, and some changes have been for the better, the buildings are better and it’s cleaner. Creatively it’s very different, but I’m still very proud of it. You’re talking to someone who is loyal to their logo,” he says, pointing to the baseball cap he’s wearing with the Yankees emblem.
And you could say that the pride is mutual, since in 2022 they gave him the key to the city and erected a bronze statue in his honor in Corona Park in Queens, with his figure carrying a radio cassette player in the style of Boombox The solar-powered DJ set plays a variety of playlists. “Having a statue of me is very important for my people, for the kids in the neighbourhood, for them to have someone to look at and say: ‘It’s possible, it can be done’. And for me, of course, it’s an incredible feeling, just like being inducted into the Rock And Roll Walk of Fame. It’s one of the best things about being an artist,” says the musician, who, by the way, has never performed in Spain in his forty-year career. “I would love to show the people of your country what I do with my music, it would be very fun for me to do Madrid, Barcelona too…” he concludes without losing his enthusiasm. Promoters, be warned.
‘The FORCE’ is out September 6 on Def Jam Recordings/ Virgin Music Group.
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