Welcome to a milestone moment. This month, LL Cool J releases his first album in 11 years. Not only is it produced entirely by A Tribe Called Quest genius Q-Tip, it also boasts appearances from superstars like Eminem, Nas, Busta Rhymes and Snoop Dogg, and marks the living legend’s return to the label where it all began: Def Jam. As both commemorate their shared 40th anniversary, here the iconic MC and Def Jam chairman/CEO Tunji Balogun guide us through the celebrations…
WORDS: GEORGE GARNER PHOTOS: ANDRE JONES
When it came to making his first album in 11 years, LL Cool J knew exactly what he required. The man born James Todd Smith practically starts choking on his own excitement as he begins hurling descriptors at Music Week. Or perhaps, more accurately, flavours.
“Man, I wanted that hot sauce, pickle juice,” he buzzes as his canary yellow jumper-sporting torso starts rocking in his chair. “Yo! Just the crispy skin chicken!”
Here his sonic recipe comes to an abrupt stop as he catches his breath. His face, framed by a crisp white NYC cap, breaks out into a massive grin.
“I just wanted the most specific, culturally relevant, Black, crazy album…” he carries on, enunciating every word with maximum vigour.
That vision has resulted in The FORCE, a milestone record for the hip-hop icon. It’s his best since 2000’s G.O.A.T. (why, yes, he was the person to coin that term). It’s produced entirely – and immaculately – by A Tribe Called Quest legend Q-Tip. It boasts a star-studded guestlist that sees him trading bars on songs with Eminem, Nas, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Rick Ross, Fat Joe and Saweetie among others. But that’s not all. The FORCE also marks the 40th anniversary of the time a teenage LL Cool J provided Def Jam with its very first official release via his 1984 debut single I Need A Beat. A full-circle moment, The FORCE sees the star signed back on Def Jam, having previously parted ways in 2008. Don’t call it a comeback, call it a celebration.
Getting to this point wasn’t easy. Having long pursued a successful acting career (“I thought I was going to do the [NCIS] show for two years, it ended up being 14,” he laughs) LL was long overdue a return to the studio. Dr Dre had already armed him with over 30 “lush, amazing beats”. The problem, he says, candidly, was that his own verses were “lame”. He knew it. Dr Dre knew it. And someone else knew it, too.
“So, I have this dream of Phife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest,” says LL of the late MC who tragically passed away in 2016. “Phife says to me – and I’m getting chills as I say this – ‘That new album you're doing with Dre is going to be dope.’”
The hesitant ‘Yeah?’ with which LL replied was met with an expression that is still burned into his mind.
“The way he looked at me…” says LL, imitating Phife’s stare. “That Cheshire cat look, that doubtful nod he gave me, it resonated. And then he faded away.”
When LL woke up, he knew what he needed to do. With Dre’s blessing – and the knowledge that he could return to those beats when his pen-game was ready – he needed to start over. He had to find a way to rap again in a manner that could – and so often did – take on any and all challengers throughout his career. Lest we forget, this is the same person who once cunningly twisted Canibus’ own line of attack against him to demoralising effect during their epic beef: ‘Ask Canibus, he ain’t understanding this, ’cause 99 per cent of his fans don’t exist.’
A day and a half after Phife visited him, LL picked up the phone and called Q-Tip.
“What’s up, bro?” the A Tribe Called Quest talisman asked, answering on the first ring.
LL explained his dream and said he promptly required Q-Tip’s expert beat-making services to get his album back on track.
“Say less,” Q-Tip replied. “When you gonna be in New York?”
Going into The FORCE, LL Cool J was, he says, an artist in search of his “Santana moment” – to do what the guitarist had done with his multiple Grammy-winning, career-reinvigorating 1999 outing Supernatural. That’s a lot of pressure, but so too is living up to his own musical legacy.
Ever since selling 100,000 copies of his debut single I Need A Beat as a teenager, LL become the first rapper to rack up 10 consecutive platinum-plus albums and to earn a Kennedy Centre Honour, all while also being inducted into the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, winning Grammys and more. Card-carrying LL super-fan Eminem summed it up best in an episode of VH1’s Behind The Music: “He was the first rock star of rap.”
That said rock star was determined to make The FORCE a statement isn’t a surprise. LL’s last album, 2013’s Authentic, didn’t go how he wanted it to. “I did this experimental record, it was okay,” he shrugs today. “It didn’t feel great. I did it on a small little label, and it just felt out of character.”
Overriding any worries of falling short of his past was LL’s frustration of hearing great rappers talk about being overlooked by new generations. He didn’t want his achievements to reside solely in yesteryear.
“I really wanted to show the world the artistry of LL Cool J,” he explains. “It’s been a long time since I had a real heavy impact on music, and I wanted to do it in a way that was like, ‘Wow, it’s really possible for guys in hip-hop to keep going!’ It’s different to just being beloved, super-famous or having an amazing catalogue and then putting out C-plus new material. All of that is pretty much par for the course. But to creatively have something as impactful as some of your best work? That’s a different challenge. That, to me, is the fun: going for the 10th championship or that fourth gold medal.”
Sitting in his LA office, with a classic boom box behind him, current Def Jam chairman and CEO Tunji Balogun is unequivocal on how LL fared in this endeavour.
“He’s rapping his ass off on this album,” he beams. “It’s actually quite uncanny. LL has the same passion, hunger and energy that he had when he got signed at 15 and became that first iconic hip-hop star. That he’s been able to sustain a 40-year career and still be sharp, innovative and imaginative? It’s very, very, very rare.”
It’s not necessarily a prerequisite for a CEO to be enamoured with a label’s glorious past in order to succeed at driving it into the future. But in Balogun – who took over the reins in January 2022 – Def Jam have a leader who, in his own words, “grew up on the label”. Ask him to cite the records that personally define its illustrious 40-year history for him, and what starts with references to Jay-Z, DMX, Method Man & Redman, Slick Rick, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Foxy Brown and Kanye West soon spirals into a fascinating, encyclopaedic trip down memory lane. Such is his passion, you half expect him to start reciting album catalogue numbers.
“The LL record we all listened to when I was in high school was [1995’s] Mr. Smith, and those are still some of my favourite songs,” he says. “It’s crazy because now I talk to this guy on the phone every couple of days. It’s very surreal!”
Photo: Ro Lexx
Right now, Balogun's focus is firmly on bringing his sharp A&R instincts to bear on the label.
“We’re really doing the work to break a new generation of artists that can carry Def Jam’s legacy,” he explains, citing how proud he is of the organic growth of signings such as Muni Long, Coco Jones and Friday.
So where, you might reasonably ask, does the return of a veteran like LL fit into that masterplan? Balogun’s answer speaks volumes. When you go into Columbia you’re going to see a Bob Dylan picture, he says. He wants Def Jam to respect all the pioneers that made the label what it is. To be proud of everything from “the magic of Rick Rubin” to legendary executives like Lyor Cohen and Kevin Liles. “The execs have felt larger than life and a part of the story as well,” he salutes. “But I won’t claim that I’m one of those [laughs].”
LL being back on Def Jam carries real cultural weight.
“The saying around here is that LL is the ‘D’ in Def Jam,” Balogun says. “He sparked the success. He’s the reason why other iconic original artists like the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy felt comfortable signing. He was the example, not just for Def Jam, but the whole genre. Not to disrespect anyone who came before him, but he was the first one who became a fully-fledged superstar. LL being back on Def Jam reconnects the dots. It’s important to have a really wide spectrum of music and show that hip-hop artists can age gracefully and put out albums in their 40s, 50s and or 60s that are compelling, intelligent and pushing things forward. The FORCE defies age and time – he sounds as fresh as he did in the ’80s and ’90s.”
LL Cool J himself has been working hard at this endeavour on behalf of others with his Rock The Bells enterprise. Its goal? To ensure that the legends that paved the way for hip-hop are granted the same reverence, respect and opportunities that rock affords to, say, the Rolling Stones. In 2023, RTB and Live Nation Urban put that into practice with a huge arena tour, including Slick Rick, Rakim, Run-DMC, Queen Latifah, De La Soul, Redman, Salt-N-Pepa and more.
Photo: Ro Lexx
This feat of survival and legacy maintenance applies to Def Jam, too. It inspired countless hip-hop labels and outlived them – even ones that at, different times, crept ahead of them in the market shares during the West Coast’s ascension in the ’90s.
“There’s a number of reasons for that,” Balogun offers. “Number one, there’s just so many iconic albums, songs and moments from the ’80s until now. Second, and this is really important, it built a universe beyond music with Def Poetry Jam, Def Comedy Jam and video games like Def Jam Vendetta. When I talk to people under the age of 25 and they hear ‘Def Jam’, they immediately think about the video game. It became more than a label, it became a lifestyle brand – especially if you include the clothing collabs. There are places that you can go with this brand that I don’t think any other major label can. It’s always been at the cutting edge of where Black music is, and then you see it progress even further to international pop stars like Justin Bieber, Alessia Cara and Rihanna. If you think about it, three artists who went on to become billionaires came out of this label. There’s a 40-year consistency of artists.”
With that said, and without further ado, we sit down with the living hip-hop legend that kickstarted that remarkable 40-year legacy. Here, LL Cool J reflects further on everything from his early days, to writing with Eminem and the key to surviving the music business…
As The FORCE marks 40 years of LL Cool J and Def Jam, can you paint a picture of who you were in 1984 at the time you were making I Need A Beat?
“Being in the studio, with my Kangol on, a little sweat suit, I was just so excited. The way I viewed that opportunity, it might as well have been like us being present for the Big Bang. It was the opportunity of a lifetime: like winning the World Cup, the Super Bowl, graduating from college, hitting the lotto with a clean bill of health and meeting the girl of your dreams all in the same day. It was amazing.”
Everyone talks about 1987’s I Need Love as the first hip-hop ballad, and how its influence can be traced all the way through to artists like Drake in the present day. But more than just an R&B crossover song, has your decisive role in helping hip-hop centre an emotional inner life and shed some of its machismo on that track been overlooked?
“I think what you’re saying makes a lot of sense. That sensitivity and that vulnerability is something that people have noticed, but I don’t know that they’ve coined it the way you honed in on. That vulnerability was definitely something that was confusing to the audience back then. But that requires the most courage, right? You have to be willing to do stuff that no-one has done, and to understand that there are consequences associated with that creatively. That has been par for the course for me. Even something as simple as making a song that sounds almost like I can’t really rap just because that’s what’s best for the song. That’s why Headsprung, with me saying all of those silly lines, ended up lasting. That was the point: it was dumb, but that made it fun. I loved it. So, going back to your point, that vulnerability just felt natural to me. I didn’t care about who thought what. I looked at it like, ‘This is my music, I can do anything.’”
You don’t get to the stage you’re at in your career without going through some tough moments – you once said the divisive reaction to your 1989 Walking With A Panther album “kept you honest” ever since. How have you learned to deal with setbacks?
“What you learn is that it’s like sports: just because you don’t win the World Cup, Super Bowl or World Series every year, that doesn’t mean you’re not a champion. Maybe the stars just didn’t line up, maybe you had a bad day, maybe you rested on your laurels a bit creatively. It’s okay. It happens. Whatever the case may be, you realise that you still have it in you; you know the level you can go to. In other words, LeBron James, Steph Curry and KD don’t have to win the championship every year for us to know they’re great ball players. And I don’t have to have the biggest album or biggest tour every year for me to know that LL Cool J is a force to be reckoned with. I’m a world-class hip-hop artist, whether I get the Grammy that year or not.”
In terms of your legacy, there are still a lot of people who don’t know that the term GOAT can be traced back to your 2000 album. Given how that term has transcended music, do you see that as a major part of your legacy now?
“You know what it reminds me of? It’s A Wonderful Life. I say this selfishly, but it’s true. Sometimes for me it doesn’t matter if people totally give me credit [at the time], because I know that if I subtracted myself from hip-hop, I know how that would change things.”
Ah, the difference one life can make…
“Dude. People don’t even realise. Something as simple as the song My Adidas by Run-DMC, that doesn’t happen if I don’t make My Radio. I could take you through unbelievable amounts of things that would change. So to me, it’s like, ‘Wow, so maybe people don’t always point a finger [of recognition], you’re still happy.’ I feel fulfilled, recognised, appreciated, respected and loved.”
When it came to A&Ring The FORCE and corralling superstars like Eminem, Nas, Snoop Dogg and Busta Rhymes, is that just a case of you picking up the phone and saying, ‘LL needs you’?
“It is exactly that. It’s amazing because they all got on it, but the flipside is that you also want to do right by the guests. I want them to be a part of something great. They were called because what they do as a musician really worked with what we were doing, they weren’t called purely because of their fame. Yes, they’re some of the biggest hip-hop stars ever, but sonically, it made sense. I didn’t call Eminem to do Proclivities, I called him for Murdergram because, sonically, it sounded right.”
Murdergram Deux is a sequel to a classic from Momma Said Knock You Out, but was it you or Eminem who decided it was time for a follow-up?
“That was me, but we were in Dr Dre’s studio together. Em is the best, man. He’s so dope, so cool – such a good guy. He came through for me big time. We made a dope song together that’s worth all of the social equity that he’s put out about [our friendship in interviews over the years].”
A lot of his collaborators no doubt have Nas’ classic line ‘Eminem murdered you on your own shit’ echoing in their minds. Was that a concern going into the recording?
“No. It’s like playing on an Olympic basketball team: you just bring your A-Game, and get to work. It really is that simple. The question just becomes, how are you playing that day? And are you ready [laughs]?”
You’ve said your fans can be divided into two camps: the ‘Don’t call it a comeback!’ hardcore crowd, and the ‘Oh, he raps!?’ audience who only know you from acting. How do you make sure the latter crowd discovers your musical legacy?
“At the end of the day, if they press play and like it, they’ll Google for more. I’m not gonna push away from a younger audience, but I’m also not consciously trying to chase them and be the oldest dude in the club [laughs]. With the Proclivities video, I didn’t go in trying to pretend I was 20 with my clothing. If a 22-year-old is into it? Cool! If they’re not? Oh well! I’m not looking to be that guy. But I love working with young artists, with Saweetie we did a song together and it makes sense.”
As your acting career grew, was there ever a point where you thought you might be done with music?
“No, not at all. I believe there’s always something new to talk about. The first award I ever got for acting was a Blockbuster Future Star award when I was deep into my hip-hop career. I remember being sad when I got it because I felt like it was gonna somehow stop me from doing music. People are born to do certain things; I was born to do hip-hop. You can’t start Def Jam and 40 years later still be doing it at this level and not be born for it. It just doesn’t work like that. I can't fool people for 40 years.”
In your film career, you once killed a mako shark using an exploding oven in Deep Blue Sea, but what’s the biggest obstacle you’ve personally had to overcome in your music career?
“If you want me to be totally, brutally honest with you, bro, the toughest thing has been feeling like my music, while obviously very successful, wasn’t always given the shot that it could have been. That’s been tough sometimes. How was it recognised by the media? By the world? I’ve done extremely well and I’m very thankful, don’t get it wrong. But sometimes there were points in my career where it felt like I was doing it in spite of [things], as opposed to having a free lane. You would want the channel or station to automatically play your song, or invite you. But sometimes it was kind of like, ‘Oh, yeah, [LL] is in this category.’ I just feel like I could have been considered for broader categories.”
When you started Rock The Bells you said, ‘The way rock treats Bono, I want people to treat Run-DMC.’ Why did you feel you needed to take supporting legendary acts into your own hands?
“I’m out of my fucking mind, bro. I just believe in the higher power, love and good of lifting up hip-hop culture and seeing artists get treated the right way. They’ve got to have an advocate; somebody has to step up. It’s foolish to a certain extent, because I would probably do a little better just focusing on me only, but I want to see other artists get treated the right way, bro. I want to see Run-DMC, Big Daddy Kane and Rakim treated right. To see these artists elevated and go on worldwide tours. Not just two guys, not three guys, not whoever’s popular on the internet this month, but everybody. I just want to see the culture thrive because I love hip-hop that much. As a fan, I want to see my heroes continue to be my heroes. Imagine it as a Marvel comic and you love the Avengers, but then you’re seeing all of them lose their powers. You’d be miserable. I want all of them to be doing well. And is it the easiest path? No. Is it even the most fun path? Not always. But does it make me feel good as a human being, in my spirit, in the deepest, deepest part of my core? Yes, it does.”
So what help can the industry give you in order to achieve that goal of celebrating artists who paved the way for hip-hop music?
“If people embrace Rock The Bells and lift it up, the rest will take care of itself. We’ll be able to raise the money, do the deals, and all of that will fall into place. But it’s really about people showing up. I loved seeing a giant crowd for Travis Scott on the internet, but I also want to see that for these classic artists because I know those fans exist. The same way Tina Turner, may she rest in peace, was able to command huge crowds as she matured, the same way Bono does, I want to see hip-hop artists play at that level. I want to come to London and play whatever the biggest venue is with my friends. It’s obvious that I know how to update my sound and make sure my thinking is contemporary. But come on, man. What’s the point of me improving what’s possible for LL if I’m not going to bring my friends along and let them benefit?”
Finally, then, in 1988 you famously told the world that, ‘LL Cool J is hard as hell.’ What does LL Cool J have to say about himself in 2024 as you release The FORCE?
“Wow. Well… Now? He’s cool as hell!”
LL Cool J’s The FORCE is out now via Def Jam
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