It's August 24, 2025, 04:40:18 PM
This might be the first guest appearance by Em in a LONG time that I don’t hate (last one being with Fat Joe); but damn, how fucking dope is LL Cool J still?! He’s a monster right now. Anyone else love the Proclivities track too? Vintage LL sound on that one with great Tip production
"Proclivities" is the best single out of the album in my opinion. The vibe of this song is incrediable. The beat is fucking awesome.
When is the album dropping again?
Sept 6th
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/31/arts/music/ll-cool-j-the-force.htmlLL Cool J Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. (And Why Would He?)At 56, the hip-hop eminence and TV star can slip into Russian, stun arenas and delight executives. With Q-Tip as a producer, he’s returning to his first love: rap.By Melena RyzikMelena Ryzik spent time with LL Cool J in New York and Los Angeles, at video and photos shoots, record events and several restaurants. They talked a lot about pie. Aug. 31, 2024At a dusty studio space in an industrial corner of Los Angeles, LL Cool J bounced and vibed in black satin and bulging, size 13 Balenciaga boots.The actor and rap luminary was filming a video for a sexy track, “Proclivities,” from his new album — but he wasn’t in front of the cameras, or rehearsing. He was just cheerfully shooting the you-know-what, with a late night of production ahead of him. Background players in feathered dresses floated by; his security circled. He did a little dance, demonstrating the inspiration for another song. He walks with a swagger and stands with a spring, too much rhythm in his 6-foot-3 frame to keep still. “Making fantasies happen,” he said, grinning, taking all of it in.LL Cool J is 56, and has been a hip-hop eminence for 40 years: His whole life is a stretch into realizing the improbable, including a sneakily successful pivot into network television. Even before adulthood, he strode with a preternatural confidence in his abilities, and a willingness to dig into the work. His rap career is not now — and, to hear him tell it, has never been — about the money, the trappings of celebrity or the cultural prestige.“I do it because I love it,” he said. “I love a fresh beat. A new lyric, a chord, the feeling — and then sharing that. Putting that on the easel of life, so to speak, for people to walk through the sonic gallery and listen to this, these vibes. I love that. I wanted my voice to be heard, and I wanted to share.”Because he started so young, the first to sign to the then-fledgling label Def Jam, when he was just 16 — and when hip-hop itself was only a decade old — he influenced an entire pantheon of artists who followed, including contemporaries his same age. Hits like the bruising, Grammy-winning “Mama Said Knock You Out,” from 1990, and plaintive grooves from his lovelorn Lothario persona (“I Need Love”; “Around the Way Girl”), cemented his legacy as a crossover pop superstar.LL Cool J outside a concert in the late 1980s. He was the label Def Jam’s first signing, when he was just 16 years old.Credit...Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesNow, with his first album in 11 years, “The Force,” due Sept. 6, he’s an elder statesman returning to the form he helped create, with a heavy assist from Q-Tip, the visionary M.C. from A Tribe Called Quest who produced the record. It’s not just a valedictory lap; it’s a flex, suffused with ’70s Euro prog-rock samples, and full of unexpected references (Jean-Michel Basquiat; Huey P. Newton) and players, like Sona Jobarteh, the Gambian griot and first female kora master.For LL Cool J, at this stage, breadth is everything. “Hip-hop is such a young genre,” he said. “It just shows you what’s possible.”Q-Tip, who crossed paths with him early on, when they were both growing up in Queens, called him a hero. “He’s the archetype,” he said.When LL Cool J leaped into the scene in the ’80s, hip-hop was dominated by groups and crews; a solo M.C. barely existed.“He was the originator of that,” Q-Tip said, while LL looked on from behind dark shades in a recent joint interview, at a high-rise Manhattan restaurant. “And I think some of the staying power is because of the elocution of the songs, the lyrics and things like that, that he was able to weave. It really is a constant.”Witness Busta Rhymes’s deep bow to him, when he brought LL Cool J onstage at a Missy Elliott concert earlier this month in Brooklyn, and recounted to the cheering arena how he first rapped over LL’s tracks, as a school kid. “He was my favorite M.C.,” Busta said. Then he turned to face LL, who is four years his senior. “You’re my hero from then, you’re my hero now.”“The Force,” an acronym for “Frequencies of Real Creative Energy,” has verses from Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Nas and other megastars. Its opening track is perhaps its heaviest, a meditation on brutality told from the point of view of a Black L.A.P.D. officer. “Songwriting,” LL told me, is what’s missing from hip-hop today. “There’s nothing wrong with rapping about money and success, and there’s nothing wrong with rapping about pure sex — I love them both,” he said. But “there has to be more to it than that, to me, in order for a project to be compelling.”The pulsing “30 Decembers” was inspired by the period, during Covid, when he traveled through New York unencumbered, wearing a mask and taking the subway to his old haunts. He’s reflective about the passage of time and his stature: “These kids don’t even know who I am/You don’t know you in the presence of a real made man.” (Thanks to a renegotiated deal with Def Jam, he owns his masters.)“I’m very aggressive when it comes to my dreams,” LL said.Credit...Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesSaweetie, who features on “Proclivities,” grew up listening to him — her parents were fans. “It is absolutely mind-blowing to be on set with such an icon,” she said at the video shoot. Their song is straight lust, but it’s “enlightening, too,” the rapper, 27, added. “How many times a day do we hear anyone say ‘proclivities’?”In the last two decades, LL — who was born James Todd Smith and goes by Todd with his intimates — has mostly been onscreen. He was a lead on “NCIS: Los Angeles,” the CBS procedural, and its spinoff, for 15 years (and he got financial points on the series). He hosted the Grammys five times.David Stapf, president of CBS Studios, said his star power and charm were evident even in an early, failed pilot. “What was even more impressive about him was his presence on the set — it was like everybody was happy,” Stapf said in a video interview. “He was just a great leader.” Afterward, the network “pretty much begged Todd” to be on “NCIS,” playing a charismatic special agent. “The vibe of the show revolved around him,” Stapf said, and audiences responded “because it was authentic, because that’s who Todd is.”What does it feel like to glide through life with such overwhelming confidence? (“I thought that I had confidence to a degree,” Q-Tip said. But not of the LL flavor.)“It feels like you’re either going to win or lose,” LL said. “And if you win, you keep winning. And if you lose, you figure out how to win. That’s what it feels like.”He added: “I’m very aggressive when it comes to my dreams.”But he didn’t need to make an album. There was no contractual obligation or beef that prodded him into it. Other artists from his era (and even more recent greats, like Jay-Z) rarely step into the studio. He could’ve coasted on his considerable laurels, hit the road — as he did last year, with the Roots — and remained an outsize influence. But he would’ve been bored, he said. So he made himself vulnerable.“The reality is, in order to win, you have to risk being criticized,” he said. “I have to risk being trolled in the comments,” and yes, he reads them. “If you want to win a championship, you got to be willing to lose a championship.”(Maybe 60 percent of what LL says is metaphor, often sports- or food-themed. “Fruit trees don’t retire,” he said, in another beat on this topic. “They don’t say, I’m going to stop producing fruit for, you know, season two. No, that’s our nature.”)LL Cool J was a lead on “NCIS: Los Angeles,” the CBS procedural, and its spinoff, for 15 years. “The vibe of the show revolved around him,” the president of CBS Studios said.Credit...Cliff Lipson/CBSAnd once he’s in, he hustles, doggedly. His grandmother, who helped raise him, taught him a maxim that he still recites eagerly: “If a task is once begun, never leave until it’s done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all.”“I heard that damn near every day,” he said — his first exposure to the mind-invading power of rhyme.ON A RAIN-SOAKED Friday evening, at a listening party in Manhattan — one of five he hosted across the country — LL Cool J introduced his album to invited guests in a minimalist space with heavy branding and free drinks by Coors (for whom he starred in a Super Bowl commercial this year). Usually that kind of promotional affair features the artist saying a few words about the tracks, sitting and nodding along in stylized reverie as they play.But LL Cool J could not be contained. In conversation with the journalist Elliott Wilson, he was philosophical (“it’s Black from the soul, not from the ego,” he said of one project) and funny; he does impressions of his collaborators, like Snoop’s high pitch and Busta’s gravelly growl. When the music started, he stood, mic in hand, and mouthed along. Eventually he just started rapping, commanding the stage so hard that his T-shirt dripped with sweat. He was like a musical theater kid who couldn’t help but give it his all, even at rehearsal.Spending time with LL, in New York and Los Angeles, at video and photo shoots, in green rooms and over meals, I was struck by how endearingly deep of a word nerd he still is. There’s nothing that makes his eyes light up like a pun. On “Passion,” a reputational throwback over dreamy Herbie Hancock jazz, he uses the word tutor to evoke both Tudor architecture and the role of a teacher.LL is a reader — “It’s good for my mind. It’s like sharpening the ax” — with a big wood-paneled bookcase at home. “Everything from Iceberg Slim to the history of the Peloponnesian War,” he said. “Authors are my friends.”When my Russian heritage came up, he suddenly started speaking in Russian. Then he referenced a crocodile character that was popular in Soviet-era animation (and used to terrify me as a kid). Why did he know about that? “Because I’m crazy,” he said gleefully, and walked away.Improbably, he seems bigger than he did decades ago; his biceps rest like coiled pythons. (He has written two fitness books with his trainer, a boxing specialist who sometimes had him work out after shows.) But he’s not immune to indulgence. At a 4 p.m. interview at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, he devoured two entrees, plus a slice of apple pie with a double scoop of vanilla ice cream. And on every occasion we were together, no server or staffer passed by without his acknowledgment: “Appreciate you.”LL HAD A ROUGH childhood. His father abused his mother, the rapper wrote in his 1997 memoir, including during her pregnancy. And when mother and son later fled to the safety of her parents’ home in St. Albans, Queens, his father turned up, LL Cool J wrote, and shot both his mother and his grandfather. The sound of her moaning woke him, and he saw blood all over the kitchen. He was 4.They all survived, but his mother’s next partner was physically and emotionally abusive to him, he wrote. Working double shifts in hospital pharmacies, his mother wasn’t aware at first. LL took solace in hip-hop, and started writing verses when he was 9. “The music and the rhymes helped me escape all the pain,” he said in the memoir.LL said his partnership with Q-Tip on his new album was invigorating, and he hopes to collaborate again.Credit...Dana When he was 11 and saw a Sugar Hill Gang concert in Harlem, he knew his path and began practicing. At 14, in a bit of wishful thinking, he christened himself Ladies Love Cool J (which came true). His family supported him, buying him turntables and a mixer.But when he dropped out of school in 9th grade to pursue rap, his grandmother gave him an ultimatum — either resume his education, or leave her house — and he split, sleeping at friends’ places and on the subway, toting his belongings in a green garbage bag. He sent demos everywhere. And then Rick Rubin, the producer and a founder of Def Jam, called. (Four decades later, LL can still remember Rubin’s old phone number.) Not long after, he returned to his grandmother’s home — which he now owns — with a $50,000 advance check.Alongside his grandmother’s work-ethic couplet, he had his mother, Ondrea Smith, exalting that he could be anything he wanted. “It’s the kind of support that teaches you how to grow a garden,” he said, “not shop for lettuce.” (His grandmother, Ellen Hightower, also inspired “Mama Said.” In the late ’80s, after an unsuccessful album, he was back home, wallowing in her basement. She told him: “You should get out there and knock them out.”)Though he had wild — very wild — years, he met his wife, Simone Smith, early; the first of their four children was born when LL was 21, and in 1995, they married in their Long Island backyard, a small potluck wedding. They’re now grandparents, living in Los Angeles.As he rose through fame, LL Cool J evolved musically. His all-out, bare-chested performance was the standout in a 1991 episode of MTV’s “Unplugged” series — the first to feature hip-hop, along with a live backing band. (Tribe, MC Lyte and De La Soul also played.) In the rehearsal, “you could see something click,” said Alex Coletti, the series’ producer. LL had the idea to drop in the Otis Redding “Hard to Handle” riff, as the breakdown in “Mama Said.” “He had a vision,” Coletti recalled. And on his next tour, LL had a live band.HE FOUND SOME of that same restless, ranging spirit while recording with Q-Tip in his home studio in New Jersey. They were in and out, holed up for over a year, breaking for Q-Tip’s cheffy cooking, and to watch films; Basquiat’s moves in “Downtown 81” led to the funky ode “Basquiat Energy.”LL had started an album with Dr. Dre, but felt he wasn’t living up to Dre’s production; after Phife Dawg, the Tribe member who died in 2016, came to him in a dream, he called up Q-Tip, who has produced for Nas, the Roots, Jay-Z, Mariah Carey and Esperanza Spalding. “Say less,” Q-Tip responded, when asked to collaborate. He didn’t need convincing.LL was immediately awed by his musicality. “This is a guy that’s going to sit there and unpack jazz records for me and talk to me about musical theory,” he said. It reminded him of a lesson from a mentor.“Quincy Jones would always talk to me about soul and science,” he said. “A lot of producers, especially in hip-hop, it’s all soul, it’s all feel. But then there’s a point when you need some science to help bridge the gap and go to the next level.” With Q-Tip, he found the right chemistry. “We didn’t have no eggshells. We didn’t have no weirdness,” LL said. “He got this mild-mannered demeanor,” but Q-Tip wasn’t afraid to push LL lyrically, telling him, “Big bro, that ain’t it.”“The reality is, in order to win, you have to risk being criticized,” LL said. “I have to risk being trolled in the comments.”Credit...Dana Scruggs for The New York TimesFor his part, Q-Tip was enthralled by how intricate and easy LL’s flows were — and how connected he was to, he said, “his younger self.”“I’ve been doing this for a minute,” said Q-Tip. “And you see people who sometimes, they forget that naïveté, that inquisitiveness. I was surprised that somebody with his acumen would be willing to go into the sandbox like that.”Sitting on the 101st floor of Hudson Yards, they could not have been more different: Q-Tip, dressed all in black, nibbling olives; LL, in shades of cream, blitzing through a saucy seafood entree. At one point they started singing the “Odd Couple” theme song.Their partnership was reinvigorating, LL said — Q-Tip even drew the album artwork — and he hopes to collaborate again. “I mean, I’m gonna pay through the teeth,” he said, and they both laughed. “But that’s a whole other conversation.” Any producer could’ve made him beats; Q-Tip dialed him back into the art.The last song on “The Force,” called “The Vow,” features three unsigned rappers: J-S.A.N.D, 25, whose beat is also on the track, was recruited by Q-Tip; Mad Squablz, 27, a security guard from Philadelphia, got a call from LL on New Year’s Day, 2022, after his manager spammed the star’s DMs; and Don Pablito, 38, a onetime barber and fellow Queens native, whose grandmother knew LL’s.The three didn’t know each other, but in video interviews, all said that being summoned for the LP was surreal and exhilarating. “It shows me what I have to aspire to be, or what I have to strive for,” J-S.A.N.D said.After generations in the spotlight, LL exists in a state of “maximum gratitude,” he said. But especially after watching Mick Jagger strut with the Rolling Stones (and Bruce Springsteen on Broadway, and U2 lighting up a stadium), he’s still hungry.“Super-hungry,” LL said. “It’s so exciting to me to be able to to do something impactful and keep going — there’s something real magical about that.”It’s rare. “And it’s fun. That’s the most important part. This [expletive] is fun!”
2 days away, The O.G. 'Murdergram' for those who dont know -
LL Cool J: ‘Hip-hop isn’t underdog music any more’The artist and actor answers your questions about dodging animatronic sharks, hanging out with Al Pacino, his love of Abba and the making of his first album in 11 yearsDo you think hip-hop still has the cultural impact it once did when you first arrived on the scene during the Def Jam era? Can it still be considered the “Black CNN”, in the words of Chuck D? Bauhaus66Hip-hop isn’t underdog music any more. On some levels, people even view it as elitist music now. Whether it’s still the Black CNN depends on the artist. It’s become more of a pop genre and doesn’t have the punk rock, Sex Pistols, Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, LL early 80s energy, but I think it’s more important than ever for artists to write about more than just the trappings of success. As you evolve, you expect someone to meet you where you’re at and if that’s still at the car dealership there’s going to be a disconnect.Why do so many rappers adapt so well to acting? alexitoPart of being a rap artist is leaning in to a certain aspect of your character. You’re not portraying a role as such – they’re two individual crafts – but there is commonality in the area of speaking in front of people, making a persona bigger and bringing a story to life. Acting is more of a sweet science. Hip-hop is like mixed martial arts: the technical aspects are more fluid.Thomas Jane said that while making the movie Deep Blue Sea, the first time an animatronic shark swam towards him, he felt a primal fear and had to get out of the water. Did you have a similar reaction? 99intheshadeI had an even worse experience because one of them almost drowned me. At that time the animatronic sharks weren’t AI; they were controlled by a guy with a joystick. He pushed the button, the shark grabbed my leg, then they called lunch and the shark just parked me underwater. After I managed to pull my leg out and get out of there, there was one dude left on set sitting there with a cigarette and he went: “I guess you made it out, huh?” Making that film was dangerous, with a lot of water flying around, but it was a great experience. I had a fun time working with Sam [L Jackson]. Watching him get eaten was my favourite part.The hip-hop documentary Big Fun in the Big Town has such a cool cameo from your grandmother. How much of an inspiration and support was she to you in your life and upbringing? keloquenceMy grandmother was an amazing woman. She was the oracle in the neighbourhood and that documentary really captures her. She was truly inspiring, such a good woman, and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her, because there was plenty of opportunity to do more wrong than right. She kept me on the straight and narrow, but was more than just a disciplinarian. She was a fox, a very clever woman, and she helped me navigate my life all the way to the Hall of Fame. I miss her sorely.Who is your favourite MC, and who would you most like to do a collab with? BadAlbertIf we’re gonna get down to it, probably Big Daddy Kane. Those first couple of albums were just so crazy and hot in the way he delivered them. The wit, the humour, the banter, the flow, the voice. Songs such as Set It Off or Raw were just flawless to me. In terms of collaboration, I thoroughly enjoyed working with Eminem on Murdergram Deux on the new record. I’ve worked with Nas, Snoop. I don’t have a wishlist but I’m open to working with people.Was it difficult acting with a parrot in Deep Blue Sea? CalamarainYes, they had to replace the parrot! The first one was in love with my earring and in every take kept trying to chew my earlobe. He was digging his claws in and my ear was bleeding. So it was a little tough, yeah.What was it like to work with James Woods on The Hard Way? louleatherI felt like I was working with Einstein or something, feeling like a little kid saying to myself: “This dude knows everything.” He seemed like the smartest dude I had ever met at that time. He’d talk about the camera angle of a banana, which I found funny. Whether it would still be like that if we had a conversation today I don’t know, but he was really impressive and fun to work with.How were your experiences during the filming of Any Given Sunday? And does the infamous Al Pacino (as Tony D’Amato) “inch by inch” speech inspire you? Bauhaus66The speech he gives to the dressing room? I remember thinking: “This guy doesn’t know his lines,” but it turned out he was so good he was coming up with lines as he was saying them, so it really felt as if he was making that speech up as he went along. It was great working with Al Pacino. He took me to eat, we hung out, went to the house he was renting where we were filming in Miami. We watched Riddick Bowe v Evander Holyfield or one of those fights. It was just dope to hang out with him.What were your experiences like on the set of Halloween H20? Are you a fan of horror? aglassofsherrynilesIt was fun. Jamie Lee Curtis was amazing and brought us a barbecue. I like horror but watching too much messes with my spirit. I’ll be laying there in bed, scaring myself, man.It’s been more than 10 years since your last studio album, Authentic. What prompted you to make a new record, and how did you find the experience after such a long break? VerulamiumParkRangerI was doing the TV show [crime drama NCIS: Los Angeles], which lasted for 14 or 15 years, and I was really enjoying it. I dabbled with one record, Authentic [2013], but I wasn’t close enough creatively to put my all into it. I didn’t want to try again until I had the energy, but that meant I had time to think about where I wanted to be creatively as an artist. I realised that like when James Cameron or Steven Spielberg do a new film, it’s cutting edge, so a new LL album needed to be impactful.Intuitively I went with Q-Tip [as producer] and it felt like sonically we were able to go back to the future. I didn’t want to imitate. I wanted to move the needle, so we listened to loads of stuff and there’s African music on there, synth-pop. I wanted to explore the connection between the inner city in America and the home of Africa. I didn’t make this record for my friends on the block. It’s for the world.What’s the most surprising record you love that would have people scratching their heads? ArthurSternomOh man, there’s so many. Wham!’s Careless Whisper is one of my favourites, also Everything She Wants. I like 99 Luftballons by Nena. Probably the biggest surprise might be Abba, Dancing Queen. I went to the Mamma Mia! musical in London and loved it.Which beefs were confected for record sales and which ones did you really mean? Any you regret (bar Canibus, which you’ve already admitted was your fault)? FlyerBoyI said it was my fault, not that I regretted it. I don’t regret any of them. They were all fun and it’s like playing for the World Cup – rivalry, but we’re just playin’. Boxers like Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury do this stuff all the time. It’s all good energy. I performed with Canibus at the Barclays Center [in Brooklyn] and brought him out.Your song The Bristol Hotel and Run-DMC’s Dumb Girl both seemed to say that women were destroying the community. How do you view songs like these from where you are now? LoveTheGuardianI’m not sure they said women were destroying the community! I mean, Bristol Hotel was on the same album as I Need Love. It was a song about a plus-size lady of leisure and I was a major fan. Art is art and I don’t think you can apply the same morals and standards. You can’t go back and say: “Oh, because the sculpture of [Michelangelo’s] David doesn’t have clothes on, I regret it. I should have made it with trousers.” I wrote the song I was inspired to write and you can interpret it a million ways, which is what art is. A sex worker might find it the most empowering song ever. I respect the question, but I stand by what I write from the heart, and I’m not sure we should change things 30 years down the line. If people are interested in where I’m at in my worldview now artistically, they should listen to the new record.Looking back, was it a bad decision to play I Need Love live at Hammersmith Odeon, London 1987? themarkmcdonaldI Need Love is one of the most important songs I’ve done. It helped usher in a whole new sub-genre of hip-hop with songs that are more skewed to females and the love aspect. I got arrested in Columbus, Georgia for humping a couch to it on stage so I think I can handle booing and coins getting tossed in London. I don’t regret playing it and I’d do it all over again. I mean, I wish I could go back and not get booed or coined. I much prefer it when everyone’s yelling: “We love you!”The Force is released on Def Jam/Virgin on 6 September
leaked...
This time there is a CD
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