LL Cool J: ‘I was hanging out with some of the most dangerous characters in New York’
The IndependentSign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. His second, “I Can’t Live Without My Radio”, hit No 15 on Billboard’s R&B chart, followed by Def Jam’s first album, LL’s 1985 full-length debut Radio. “Phife’s like, ‘Yo, that new record with Dre is gonna be dope’,” LL remembers. I want pimentos in the potato salad – spice flavours.’” That’s exactly what Tip delivers on The Force; LL describes his productions as “a sonic landscape I could sink my teeth into”. The album’s uncompromising opening track, “Spirit of Cyrus” – a collaboration with Snoop Dogg – certainly redraws LL’s paradigm, a chilling chronicle of a “black vigilante” settling scores with his AR-15 and M-16 rifles.
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LL Cool J ‘humbly’ predicts people will realise he’s ‘the most important rapper that ever existed’
The IndependentGrammy award-winning hip hop icon LL Cool J on how new album The Force pushes the envelope sonically
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