Wrapped in what is possibly the most prog rock sleeve design in hip-hop history, Exit 13 marks LL Cool J's departure from Def Jam, the pioneering label the MC helped build. Beginning with the blustery and overblown "It's Time for War," Exit 13 does include a couple tracks where LL sounds as on fire as ever, usually when his targets are specific rather than general, as on "You Better Watch Me" and "This Is Ring Tone M...." Elsewhere, the album's tone tilts toward the reactionary in its clear desire to sound just like a standard 2008 mainstream rap album, with unnecessary references to Petron and Cognac and in-your-face evidence that LL really wants you to know he's not behind the times. [A clean version of the album was also made available.]
It's great to hear LL Cool J so unrestrained and so inspired on "Hush," one of the fantastic tracks on the more hit than miss The DEFinition. The track segues into the much lesser "I'm gonna do this to you, I'm gonna do that to you" Penthouse letter that's "Every Sip," but there's more here to bounce to than on 2002's mushy 10, and you can thank Timbaland for that. He's in the producer's chair for the banging kickoff single, "Headsprung," where LL meets the South with crunk beats and a slowed-down, syrup-sipper's chorus. He adds that Art of Noise-styled, mystic pan flute synth to "Can't Explain It" and a buzzing-in-your-ear melody to "Feel the Beat." LL responses to all these fresh sounds with vigor, spitting out the rhymes swiftly, and comes up with a couple things that make you go "dang!" without a trip or stumble. As good as Timbaland's beats are, it's 7 Aurelius who steals the show with his work on "Hush." It's more lovers' rap from LL, but Aurelius' beats and tricks should appeal to XY and XX chromosomes equally. Same goes for his team-up with R. Kelly, "I'm About to Get Her," making "Every Sip" the only romantic yawner. LL offers up "you rap for the thugs/I rap for the ladies" on the album, but there's some tough, near-"Mama Said Knock You Out"'s here, and from any hardcore thug's point of view, he's getting better at splitting the difference. [A Japanese version included bonus tracks.]
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
September 23, 1997
Label:
Def Jam
Rating:
Genre:
Rap
Styles:
East Coast Rap
Pop-Rap
Mr. Smith was the third comeback for LL Cool J, the third time he returned to commercial and creative strengths after being written off by many critics and fans. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that its follow-up, Phenomenon, finds LL coasting -- after all, after his two previous comeback albums, he allowed himself to slacken the pace a little bit and ride on his credentials. Fortunately, Phenomenon isn't nearly as weak as 14 Shots to the Dome or Bigger and Deffer, but it simply doesn't have the power of masterpieces like Radio and Mama Said Knock You Out. Essentially, it's a retread of Mr. Smith, offering the same laid-back soul jams and rolling party beats. There's a couple of killer singles, a few dogs, and a lot of filler -- more so than on Mr. Smith, in fact. Still, Phenomenon sounds good when it's playing, and even if it doesn't leave a lasting impression, it's a solid, professional effort that illustrates why LL is still in the game, 12 years after his first record. [Phenomenon was released in an edited version with all of the profanity removed.]
Track #
Track
Time
Composer
1
Phenomenon
3:01
Lawrence, Withers, Combs, McKenney, Smith
2
Candy
4:33
Barnes, Johnson, Olivier, Starr, Harris, Lewis, Smith
3
Starsky and Hutch
4:03
Lewis, Rans, Smith, Brown, Smith
4
Another Dollar
3:48
Pimentel, Barnes, Olivier, Rebennack, Smith
5
Nobody Can Freak You
3:23
Arrington, Carter, Barnes, Olivier, Smith
6
Hot, Hot, Hot
3:58
Christopher, Lawrence, Combs, Frantz, Stanley, Weymouth, Smith
7
4, 3, 2, 1
4:16
Horovitz, Yauch, Rubin, Sermon, Williams, Noble, Simmons, Smith, Smith
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Released:
November 05, 1996
Label:
Universal Distribution
Rating:
Genre:
Rap
Styles:
East Coast Rap
Pop-Rap
Golden Age
All World: Greatest Hits is an excellent compilation of LL Cool J's greatest hits, featuring 16 of his biggest and best singles, including "I Can't Live Without My Radio," "Rock the Bells," "I'm Bad," "I Need Love," "Going Back to Cali," "Jingling Baby," "The Boomin' System," "Mama Said Knock You Out," "Around the Way Girl," and "Hey Lover." It's the definitive retrospective of one of the greatest rappers to ever record, and if you doubt the truth of that statement, just take a listen to this collection.
On the strength of the slow-burning Boyz II Men duet "Hey Lover," LL Cool J returned to the top of the charts with Mr. Smith, meaning the album is somewhat of a comeback for the veteran rapper. LL Cool J's skills had never deserted him, but his previous album, 14 Shots to the Dome, was a exercise in hardcore that only worked in fits and spurts. There's a couple of hard moments on Mr. Smith, but the album is at its most successful when he concentrates on his seductive, romantic side. LL Cool J has gotten a bit dirtier since the teenage days of "I Need Love," but he never steps over into the explicit, lewd come-ons of R. Kelly, preferring to suggest everything with a series of double entendres, metaphors, and analogies. Mr. Smith isn't a perfect record -- there's too many slack moments for it to qualify as one of his best -- but it proves that LL Cool J remains vital a decade after his debut. [Mr. Smith, All Music Guide
Increasingly dismissed by hip-hop fans as an old-school relic and a slick pop sellout, LL Cool J rang in the '90s with Mama Said Knock You Out, a hard-edged artistic renaissance that became his biggest-selling album ever. Part of the credit is due to producer Marley Marl, whose thumping, bass-heavy sound helps LL reclaim the aggression of his early days. Mama Said Knock You Out isn't quite as hard as Radio, instead striking a balance between attitude and accessibility. But its greater variety and more layered arrangements make it LL's most listenable album, as well as keeping it in line with more contemporary sensibilities. Marl's productions on the slower tracks are smooth and soulful, but still funky; as a result, the ladies'-man side of LL's persona is the most convincing it's ever been, and his ballads don't feel sappy for arguably the first time on record. Even apart from the sympathetic musical settings, LL is at his most lyrically acrobatic, and the testosterone-fueled anthems are delivered with a force not often heard since his debut. The album's hits are a microcosm of its range -- "The Boomin' System" is a nod to bass-loving b-boys with car stereos; "Around the Way Girl" is a lush, winning ballad; and the title cut is one of the most blistering statements of purpose in hip-hop. It leaves no doubt that Mama Said Knock You Out was intended to be a tour de force, to regain LL Cool J's credibility while proving that he was still one of rap's most singular talents. It succeeded mightily, making him an across-the-board superstar and cementing his status as a rap icon beyond any doubt. [A Japanese version added a bonus DVD.]
Released at a time when hip-hop's anxieties about crossover success were at a fever pitch, Walking With a Panther found LL Cool J trying to reinvent his sound while building on the commercial breakthrough of Bigger and Deffer. Even though the album succeeded on both counts, it did so in a way that didn't sit well with hip-hop purists, who began to call LL's credibility into question. Their fears about commercialism diluting the art form found a focal point in LL, the man who pioneered the rap ballad -- and there are in fact three ballads here, all of them pretty saccharine (and, tellingly, none of them singles). Apart from that, some of the concerns now seem like much ado about nothing, and there are numerous fine moments (and a few great singles) to be found on the album. It is true, though, that Walking With a Panther does end up slightly less than the sum of its parts. For one thing, it's simply too long; moreover, the force of his early recordings is missing, and there's occasionally a sense that his once-peerless technique on the mic is falling behind the times. Nonetheless, Walking With a Panther is still a fine outing on which LL proves himself a more-than-capable self-producer. The fuller, more fleshed-out sound helps keep his familiar B-boy boasts sounding fresh, and force or no force, he was in definite need of an update. On the singles -- "Going Back to Cali," "I'm That Type of Guy" (inexplicably left off All World), "Jingling Baby," and "Big Ole Butt" -- LL exudes an effortless cool; he's sly, assured, and in full command of a newfound sexual presence on record. So despite its flaws, Walking With a Panther still ranks as one of LL's stronger albums -- strong enough to make the weak moments all the more frustrating.
LL Cool J rocketed to the top of the hip-hop world in 1985 with Radio, his astonishing debut, but he lost his footing a bit with Bigger and Deffer, his mildly disappointing follow-up that proved to be a commercial breakthrough all the same. It's a powerful album that gets underway with a bang, as LL raps, "No rapper can rap quite like I can," and makes his case throughout the album-opening "I'm Bad," a ferocious hardcore rap with a great DJ-scratched hook. While that song ranks among LL's best (and most popular) ever, Bigger and Deffer doesn't boast too many other standout moments, with the exception of "I Need Love." Its balladic tenderness comes as a late-album surprise, considering how ferocious LL sounds elsewhere here. Nonetheless, like it or loathe it, the song set the template for a number of such lovers raps that would bring LL much crossover success in the years to come. "I Need Love" aside, Bigger and Deffer is consistently solid, produced entirely by the L.A. Posse (Darryl Pierce, Dwayne Simon, and Bobby Erving) and filled with the sort of hard-hitting hip-hop that was Def Jam's staple at the time. But while the album is mostly solid, it does lack the creative spark that had made Radio such an invigorating release only a couple years prior (the absence of Rick Rubin here is unfortunate). In those couple years since LL had put out Radio, rap music had taken big strides. Now, in 1987, LL had to contend with the likes of Eric B. & Rakim, Kool Moe Dee, Public Enemy, and Boogie Down Productions, with others like EPMD, Big Daddy Kane, Ice-T, and N.W.A on the horizon. When put in such a context, Bigger and Deffer pales a bit; in the years since LL's Radio rocked the streets of New York, rap had taken leaps and bounds while LL hadn't. So it was no surprise when LL suddenly came under attack by his rivals and a few fans, sending him back to the drawing board for his next effort, the whopping 18-track Walking With a Panther (1989), which showed more ambition and progress. [Def Jam released a clean edition in addition to the standard one.]
Run-D.M.C. was the first rap act to produce cohesive, fully realized albums, and LL Cool J was the first to follow in their footsteps. LL was a mere 17 years old when he recorded his classic debut album Radio, a brash, exuberant celebration of booming beats and B-boy attitude that launched not only the longest career in hip-hop, but also Rick Rubin's seminal Def Jam label. Rubin's back-cover credit ("Reduced by Rick Rubin") is an entirely apt description of his bare-bones production style. Radio is just as stripped-down and boisterously aggressive as any Run-D.M.C. album, sometimes even more so; the instrumentation is basically just a cranked-up beatbox, punctuated by DJ scratching. There are occasional brief samples, but few do anything more than emphasize a downbeat. The result is rap at its most skeletal, with a hard-hitting, street-level aggression that perfectly matches LL's cocksure teenage energy. Even the two ballads barely sound like ballads, since they're driven by the same slamming beats. Though they might sound a little squared-off to modern ears, LL's deft lyrics set new standards for MCs at the time; his clever disses and outrageous but playful boasts still hold up poetically. Although even LL himself would go on to more intricate rhyming, it isn't really necessary on such a loud, thumping adrenaline rush of a record. Radio was both an expansion of rap's artistic possibilities and a commercial success (for its time), helping attract new multiracial audiences to the music. While it may take a few listens for modern ears to adjust to the minimalist production, the fact that it hews so closely to rap's basic musical foundation means that it still possesses a surprisingly fresh energy, and isn't nearly as dated as many efforts that followed it (including, ironically, some of LL's own).
This binocular preview is a sneak peek of the Web page behind this search result. If the image says "Site Home Page" we are showing you a preview of the website's home page because we still have to update our binocular system with the particular page from your search result. The text at the bottom of the preview gives you more details, such as:
Whether the page requires plug-ins such as Flash
Whether the page will "pop up" additional windows upon loading
How much data you'll have to download to view the complete page
How long it should take for you to download the full page, based on a 56 kb/s dial-up Internet connection
