LL Cool J
James Todd Smith (born January 14, 1968), known professionally as LL Cool J (short for Ladies Love Cool James),[3] is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor.[4] He is one of the earliest rappers to achieve commercial success, alongside fellow new school hip hop acts Beastie Boys and Run-DMC.
"James Smith (rapper)" redirects here. For other people, see James Smith.
LL Cool J
- Rapper
- songwriter
- record producer
- actor
1984–present
Kidada Jones (1992–1994)[2]
4[1]
Queens, New York City, U.S.
Signed to Def Jam Recordings in 1984, LL Cool J's breakthrough came with his single "I Need a Beat" and his landmark debut album, Radio (1985). He achieved further commercial and critical success with the albums Bigger and Deffer (1987), Walking with a Panther (1989), Mama Said Knock You Out (1990), Mr. Smith (1995), and Phenomenon (1997). His twelfth album, Exit 13 (2008), was his last in his long-tenured deal with Def Jam.
LL Cool J has appeared in numerous films, including Halloween H20, In Too Deep, Any Given Sunday, Deep Blue Sea, S.W.A.T., Mindhunters, Last Holiday, and Edison. He played NCIS Special Agent Sam Hanna in the CBS crime drama television series NCIS: Los Angeles. LL Cool J was also the host of Lip Sync Battle on Paramount Network.[5][6]
A two-time Grammy Award winner, LL Cool J is known for hip hop songs such as "Going Back to Cali", "I'm Bad", "The Boomin' System", "Rock the Bells", and "Mama Said Knock You Out", as well as R&B hits such as "Doin' It", "I Need Love", "Around the Way Girl" and "Hey Lover". In 2010, VH1 placed him on their "100 Greatest Artists Of All Time" list.[7] In 2017, LL Cool J became the first rapper to receive the Kennedy Center Honors.[8] In 2021, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with an award for Musical Excellence.[9]
Early life and family[edit]
James Todd Smith was born on January 14, 1968, in Bay Shore, New York to Ondrea Griffith (born January 19, 1946) and James Louis Smith Jr,[10] also known as James Nunya.[11][12][13] According to the Chicago Tribune, "[As] a kid growing up middle class and Catholic in Queens, life for Smith was heart-breaking. His father shot his mother and grandfather, nearly killing them both. When 4-year-old Smith found them, blood was everywhere."[14] In 1972, Smith and his mother moved into his grandparents' home in St. Albans, Queens, where he was raised.[15][16] He suffered physical and mental abuse from his mother's ex-boyfriend Roscoe.[14]
Smith began rapping at the age of 10, influenced by the hip-hop group The Treacherous Three. In 1984, sixteen-year-old Smith was creating demo tapes in his grandparents' home.[17] His grandfather, a jazz saxophonist, bought him $2,000 worth of equipment, including two turntables, an audio mixer and an amplifier.[18] During this time, Smith reconciled with his father who "made amends for a lot of things" by offering him guidance at the start of his music career.[14][12][19] His mother was also supportive of his musical endeavors, using her tax refund to buy him a Korg drum machine.[20] Smith has stated that by the time he received musical equipment from his relatives, he "was already a rapper. In this neighborhood, the kids grow up in rap. It's like speaking Spanish if you grow up in an all-Spanish house."[18] This was at the same time that NYU student Rick Rubin and promoter-manager Russell Simmons founded the then-independent Def Jam label. By using the mixer he had received from his grandfather, Smith produced and mixed his own demos and sent them to various record companies throughout New York City, including Def Jam.[18]
Acting career[edit]
While LL Cool J first appeared as a rapper in the movie Krush Groove (performing "I Can't Live Without My Radio"),[65] his first acting part was a small role in a high school football movie called Wildcats.[66] He landed the role of Captain Patrick Zevo in Barry Levinson's 1992 film Toys.[67] From 1995 to 1999, he starred in his own television sitcom In the House. He portrayed an ex-Oakland Raiders running back who finds himself in financial difficulties and is forced to rent part of his home out to a single mother and her two children, one of whom moves out with her before the third season.[68]
In 1998, LL Cool J played security guard Ronny in Halloween H20, the seventh movie in the Halloween franchise.[69] In 1999, he co-starred as Preacher, the chef in the Renny Harlin horror/comedy Deep Blue Sea.[70] He received positive reviews for his role as Dwayne Gittens, an underworld boss nicknamed "God", in In Too Deep.[71] Later that year, he starred as Julian Washington—a talented but selfish running back on fictional professional football team the Miami Sharks—in Oliver Stone's drama Any Given Sunday. He and co-star Jamie Foxx allegedly got into a real fistfight while filming a fight scene.[72] During the next two years, LL Cool J appeared in Rollerball,[73] Deliver Us from Eva,[74] S.W.A.T.,[75] and Mindhunters.[76]
In 2005, he returned to television in a guest-starring role on the Fox medical drama House; he portrayed a death row inmate felled by an unknown disease in an episode titled "Acceptance". He appeared as Queen Latifah's love interest in the 2006 movie Last Holiday.[77] He also guest-starred on 30 Rock in the 2007 episode "The Source Awards", portraying a hip-hop producer called Ridikulous who Tracy Jordan fears may kill him.[78] LL Cool J appeared in Sesame Street's 39th season, introducing the word of the day--"Unanimous"—in episode 4169 (September 22, 2008) and performing "The Addition Expedition" in episode 4172 (September 30, 2008).[79]
In 2009, he began starring on the CBS police procedural NCIS: Los Angeles. The show ran for 14 seasons and is a spin-off of NCIS, which itself is a spin-off of the naval legal drama JAG. LL Cool J portrayed NCIS Special Agent Sam Hanna, an ex–Navy SEAL who is fluent in Arabic and is an expert on West Asian culture. The series debuted in autumn of 2009, but the characters were introduced in an April 2009 crossover episode on the parent show.[80][81] In 2013, LL received a Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actor: Action for his work on the program.[82] In May 2023, following the series finale of NCIS: Los Angeles, it was announced that LL would reprise the role of Sam Hanna as a recurring guest star in the third season of NCIS: Hawaiʻi.[83]
In December 2013, LL co-starred as a gym owner in the sports dramedy Grudge Match.[84] From 2015 to 2019, LL hosted the show Lip Sync Battle.[85] He was also cast to play Beth's father in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, as shown in a trailer for the film, but his scenes were cut from the final product.[86]
Other ventures[edit]
LL Cool J worked behind the scenes with the mid-1980s hip-hop sportswear line TROOP.[87]
He also launched a clothing line (called "Todd Smith").[88] The brand produced popular urban apparel. Designs included influences from LL's lyrics and tattoos, as well as from other icons in the hip-hop community.[89]
LL Cool J has written four books, including I Make My Own Rules, (1997), an autobiography cowritten with Karen Hunter. His second book was the children-oriented book called And The Winner Is... published in 2002. In 2006, LL Cool J and his personal trainer, Dave "Scooter" Honig, wrote a fitness book titled The Platinum Workout. His fourth book, LL Cool J (Hip-Hop Stars) was cowritten in 2007 with hip-hop historian Dustin Shekell and Public Enemy's Chuck D.
Throughout his career, LL Cool J has started several businesses in the music industry. In 1993, he founded a music label called P.O.G. (Power Of God) and formed the company Rock The Bells to produce music. On his Rock The Bells label, he had artists such as AMyth,[90] Smokeman, Natice, Chantel Jones and Simone Starks. Additionally, Rock the Bells Records was responsible for the Deep Blue Sea soundtrack, which helped to promote the 1999 movie of the same name. Rufus "Scola" Waller also signed to the label, but was ultimately released when the label folded.[91]
LL Cool J founded and launched Boomdizzle.com, a record label / social networking site, in September 2008. The website was designed to accept music uploads from aspiring artists, primarily from the hip-hop genre, and allow the site's users to rate songs through contests, voting, and other community events.[92]
In March 2015, LL Cool J appeared in an introduction to WrestleMania 31.[93]
Legacy[edit]
With the breakthrough success of his hit single "I Need a Beat" and the Radio LP, LL Cool J became one of the first hip-hop acts to achieve mainstream success, along with Kurtis Blow and Run-DMC. Gigs at larger venues were offered to LL as he would join the 1986–'87 Raising Hell tour, opening for Run-D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys.[31] Another milestone of LL's popularity was his appearance on American Bandstand as the first hip-hop act on the show.[32]
The album's success also helped in contributing to Rick Rubin's credibility and repertoire as a record producer. Radio, along with Raising Hell (1986) and Licensed to Ill (1986), would form a trilogy of New York City-based, Rubin-helmed albums that helped to diversify hip-hop.[33][34] Rubin's production credit on the back cover reads "REDUCED BY RICK RUBIN", referring to his minimalist production style, which gave the album its stripped-down and gritty sound. This style would serve as one of Rubin's production trademarks and would have a great impact on future hip-hop productions.[35] Rubin's early hip hop production work, before his exit from Def Jam to Los Angeles, helped solidify his legacy as a hip hop pioneer and establish his reputation in the music industry.[35]
Radio's release coincided with the growing new school scene and subculture, which also marked the beginning of hip-hop's "golden age" and the replacement of old school hip hop.[94] This period of hip hop was marked by the end of the disco rap stylings of old school, which had flourished prior to the mid-1980s, and the rise of a new style featuring "ghetto blasters". Radio served as one of the earliest records, along with Run-D.M.C.'s debut album, to combine the vocal approach of hip hop and rapping with the musical arrangements and riffing sound of rock music, pioneering the rap rock hybrid sound.[95]
The emerging new-school scene was initially characterized by drum machine-led minimalism, often tinged with elements of rock, as well as boasts about rapping delivered in an aggressive, self-assertive style. In image as in song, the artists projected a tough, cool, street b-boy attitude. These elements contrasted sharply with the 1970s P-Funk and disco-influenced outfits, live bands, synthesizers and party rhymes of acts prevalent in 1984, rendering them old school.[96] In contrast to the lengthy, jam-like form predominant throughout early hip hop ("King Tim III", "Rapper's Delight", "The Breaks"), new-school artists tended to compose shorter songs that would be more accessible and had potential for radio play, and conceived more cohesive LPs than their old-school counterparts; the style typified by LL Cool J's Radio.[97] A leading example of the new school sound is the song "I Can't Live Without My Radio", a loud, defiant declaration of public loyalty to his boom box, which The New York Times described as "quintessential rap in its directness, immediacy and assertion of self".[18] It was featured in the film Krush Groove (1985), which was based on the rise of Def Jam and new school acts such as Run-D.M.C. and the Fat Boys.[98]
The energy and hardcore delivery and musical style of rapping featured on Radio, as well as other new-school recordings by artists such as Run-D.M.C., Schooly D, T La Rock and Steady B, proved to be influential to hip-hop acts of the "golden age" such as Boogie Down Productions and Public Enemy.[99] The decline of the old-school form of hip hop also led to the closing of Sugar Hill Records, one of the labels that helped contribute to early hip hop and that, coincidentally, rejected LL's demo tape.[100] As the album served as an example of an expansion of hip-hop music's artistic possibilities, its commercial success and distinct sound soon led to an increase in multi-racial audiences and listeners, adding to the legacy of the album and hip hop as well.[95][101]
In 2017, LL Cool J became the first rapper to receive Kennedy Center Honors.[8]
In 2021, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with an award for Musical Excellence.[9]
Personal life[edit]
Relationships[edit]
Smith dated Kidada Jones, daughter of producer Quincy Jones, from 1992 to 1994.[102]
