LL Cool J has said he believes people will one day “wake up” to realise that he “is the most important rapper” to have ever existed.
In a recent interview on Apple Music radio show Le Code, the rapper said that he thinks, one day, people will fully recognise his contribution to rap and hip hop culture – and that he is “the most important rapper that ever existed.”
“I truly believe one day people are going to say that,” he emphasized. The ‘Mama Said Knock You Out’ rapper added to claim that he’s been responsible for introducing the following to hip-hop culture: “all the diamonds… the ice and the jewellery”, along with “love songs and all the love shit” and the “rebellious, bad boy vibes before it was done.”
He added: “When it comes to the G.O.A.T terminology, they gon’ say, ‘This is the guy who came up with all the G.O.A.T stuff. I could go on and on and on.”
The rapper went on to list a number of ways in which he influenced rap. “The biggest names, the billionaire artists, were launched on a label I launched,” he continued.
“Seriously, these names, the biggest names in hip-hop… and I’m saying this with love, I’m not trying to be funny, I’m not trying to be arrogant.”
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LL Cool J’s landmark debut album ‘Radio’ is widely regarded as one of the genre’s most significant records.
Follow ups ‘Bigger and Deffer’ (1987) and 1990’s ‘Mama Said Knock You Out’ also received much praise, while he has also starred in films including The Hard Way alongside Michael J Fox and James Woods, and the action film SWAT with Colin Farrell, Samuel L Jackson and Michelle Rodriguez.
Back in September, LL Cool J spoke out about the reaction he got when he revealed plans to record a new album.
In an interview with Variety, the veteran rapper – real name James Todd Smith – talked about how people reacted to his desire to work on ‘The FORCE’, which was eventually released on September 6. It marked his first studio album in eleven years.
“When I told people, ‘Yo, I wanna do a culturally relevant album’ in the midst of all these [younger artists], people looked at me like I had nine heads,” he told the publication. “They looked at me like I was a hydra – a hydra! – looking at me crazy like that, not because of any ill will, but just ‘How can you do that?’”
The rapper, who turned 56 this year, followed through with the project, which was mainly produced by A Tribe Called Quest‘s Q-Tip. LL Cool J said he felt his ability to record such an album at his age would challenge ageism in hip-hop.
“It’s like breaking the four-minute mile,” he continued. “Nobody thought it could be broken until Roger Bannister did it, and then a lot of people started breaking it. Now you’ll see, when [‘The FORCE’] has success, you’re [seeing] people believing that they can make it happen, and it’s gonna extend the life of hip-hop in general.”
He added that “if somebody doesn’t do it” to show how “a guy who’s been out for a long time can make a new record and be relevant”, then “it never happens”.
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Last month, LL Cool J previewed ‘The FORCE’ track ‘Murdergram Deux’, which sees his first-ever collaboration with Eminem. Q-Tip shared with Variety that it was a surreal moment to be in the studio with a rapper he and Eminem idolised as kids. “This is like a fucking dream, isn’t it, Tip?” he recalls Eminem telling him.
NME spoke with LL Cool J about ‘The FORCE’, an album that he felt “artistic pressure” from himself to undertake. “[I] want to create something that I love, something that I can really embrace, something that I thought was amazing, something that I felt like, like was meaningful to me, something that I could love as a fan,” he said.
He also bristled at the common sentiment that “hip-hop is a young man’s game”, saying: “The genre just turned 50-years-old. So, what are we going to call it in 100 years? How is that mindset even sustainable?”
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