In 2024, the question had to be asked: Who really is checking for an LL Cool J album? And to be fair, it’s not like the self-designated “Legend in Leather” couldn’t do without it. After his exit from Def Jam in 2008, LL moved on to carve a niche for himself as an actor, host, entrepreneur, and icon. He was part of the main cast of NCIS: Los Angeles and its spinoff. He hosted the Grammys (five times) and Lip Sync Battle, among other productions. He founded Rock the Bells, an organization named after one of his classic songs that’s dedicated to hip hop culture through everything from merch and music distribution to podcasting and a namesake festival. And through various documentaries, LL continued to be rightfully celebrated as one of hip hop’s living legends.
But there’s always that itch, that longing for that first love. LL may have gone Hollywood, but Queens, in more ways than one, will soon have him back.
Regardless of the extracurricular activities, LL Cool J didn’t seem to plan to stay that long away from the mic. For years, there was word about his upcoming album, named as the sequel to G.O.A.T., which he released in 2000. But that idea was eventually scraped. Another album, a collaborative effort with 50 Cent, also didn’t make it. And who remembers the fastest un-retirement in hip hop history, the result of an online Twitter-based rant? Either way, the rap world kept moving on—through trap, SoundCloud rap, drill, streaming, the Big 3—as interest in LL as an artist began to run cold.
But not to worry, LL Cool J was making moves. By 2019, he was back—on Def Jam, that is. As the head of his own company, LL Cool J Incorporated, LL struck a deal with his former record label, with distribution by Virgin Music Group under the Universal Music Group umbrella. That deal included getting to keep all his masters. Later that year, he revealed that fellow Queens native Q-Tip, the frontman of the legendary A Tribe Called Quest, was producing most of the upcoming album. And in 2023, thanks to a promotional tour, he revealed the album’s title: “The Frequencies of Real Creative Energy,” better known as The FORCE.
However, by the time LL announced the release date and tracklist for The FORCE on July 12th, 2024, to coincide with Def Jam’s 40th anniversary, some couldn’t help but think that this may be a disaster in the making. It had been 11 years since LL released an album, and the last time he did so, it performed so poorly that even some of his fans still don’t know it exists. So, between the procedurals and the hosting, it felt like an eternity since the universe saw LL primarily as a rapper.
And it wasn’t just the fans who needed a refresher course. LL needed one, too, as he would make an admission—one that can embarrass any MC—that he had to learn how to rap again. Apparently, some things in life are not like breathing.
In any case, The FORCE, LL Cool J’s fourteenth studio album, became available on Sept. 6th, 2024. Four singles were already released ahead of the album itself. The first was “Saturday Night Special,” a track Q-Tip loops from a psychedelic rock sample for LL, Rick Ross, and Fat Joe to provide verses about a drug kingpin who should never be double-crossed. Standard material for Rozay and Joey Crack, but not Ladies Love Cool James. “Passion” is more in LL’s wheelhouse. Q-Tip cooks this jazzy gallop of a beat from Herbie Hancock’s “Sun Touch” for LL to embed internal rhyming in his relatively rapid flow as he demonstrates his Queens-bred coolness.
It gets better with the third single, “Proclivities,” which is basically “Doin’ It” with a 2020s twist. Once again, it’s the genius of implication, not cheap graphic details: handcuffs, ruffled wig, foggy car door windows—it all makes sense. This time, Q-Tip carves the pad-driven beat from a portion of Gary Numan’s “M.E.” with Saweetie being the love interest, holding her own with the sung chorus and a clever second verse. But LL and Q-Tip are on a whole new stratosphere, especially in the middle of the third verse, where the former flows smoothly over the latter’s beat switch-up. “Proclivities” is arguably the best lust track LL has cut since “Doin’ It.”
The final pre-album-release single is the best one. Despite his unparalleled reputation for brag rap, LL Cool J will never be cited as one of the genre’s great rhyme technicians. But as evidenced in the previously mentioned “Passion,” LL has never before in his career really pushed himself to this level. You’d think using rhyme devices such as internal rhyming and multi-syllables is a normal practice for him, and the absolute apex in The FORCE is “Murdergram Deux.” It’s the sequel to his lyrical showcase in the Mama Said Knock You Out album back in 1990, but this time LL has company. Eminem calls himself the “Rap God” for a reason; as a master technician, get ready to match his rhyming energy on a track or become a cruel afterthought. Never one to back out of a challenge, though, LL barges through the gate with a series of rhymes any longtime fan would have never expected from him.
Do you remember first time you heard the legend in leather?
The career ender with the road-killer stuck to his fender
I'm on another bender, drunk off the power
That make a coward surrender as I devour contenders
Eminem shows up with his usual hyper-rhyming self and pays tribute to LL as one of his idols. It’s a beautiful one-two punch, effectively backed by a racing track that would not sound out of place as Knight Rider theme music.
The FORCE is truly a showcase of LL Cool J venturing into places anyone wouldn’t have thought possible. The opening album track, “Spirit of Cyrus,” featuring Snoop Dogg on the chorus, is black vigilantism in impressively vivid detail, LL employing a first-person narrative as a man on a vengeful spree under the pretext of racism. The inspiration comes from Christopher Dorner, who carried out a series of shootings in February 2013 as revenge for his termination as an LAPD officer, and who had left a long Facebook post that came to be known as his “manifesto.” The song is prefaced by a sample from the most memorable scene in the 1979 cult classic film, The Warriors, where the song’s namesake makes a speech—a.k.a. the “Can You Dig It?” Speech—to persuade New York City’s gangs to join forces in outnumbering and overwhelming the NYPD. LL, a socially conscious rapper, a storyteller with lurid metaphors and intense imagery? Who knew? Q-Tip crowns this jewel of a song with a delightfully dark soundscape of tapping drums, bright organs, guitar chugs, orchestral choir sounds, and a rapid ascension of snares at virtually every fourth bar.
The pleasant surprises continue through the album. This just might be LL’s “Blackest” album. In addition to “Spirit of Cyrus,” there’s “Huey in the Chair,” which welcomes a guest spot for Busta Rhymes and evokes the image of the Black Panther leader to enforce LL’s lofty stature. “Praise Him,” sampling from the Africa-influenced Trini singer Oluko Imo, finds LL and fellow great Nas flowing effortlessly with the concept that “God is all in us.” And there’s “Black Code Suite.” The first part conjures Black American soul with imagery of elements like collard greens, fried chicken and catfish, comedians, jazz musicians and Motown singers, and the two-step. And it smoothly segues into Gambian singer and musician Sona Jobarteh, descendant of griots, playing the kora, and singing partly in Mandinka. It’s the unity of the Black world from one end of it to the other. You can be proud of who you are as a Black American, while nodding to your West African ancestral roots.
Other parts of The FORCE are no less impressive. The title track is basically LL enjoying the fruits of his success, using a yacht as his conduit. “30 Decembers” plays like a double metaphor: encountering symbols of a world frozen by COVID while ruminating about his stature in hip hop and mainstream culture, wading through a post-apocalyptic soundbed worthy of inclusion in a Terminator movie scene.
And these kids don’t even know who I am
You don’t know you in the presence of a real made man
You standing too close
And while “Post Modern,” “Runnit Back,” and “Basquiat Energy” might feel like lesser songs, they are actually mature outtakes of LL’s braggadocio. And can it really be “braggadocio” when he was the first rapper to achieve great success at such a young age?
If there are any demerits in The FORCE, well, they may come off as mere quibbles. Some of the songs, such as “Post Modern” and “Basquiat Energy” could have done with a more conventional song structure and more fleshed-out choruses. On the other hand, other songs, such as “Saturday Night Special” and “Runnit Back,” have simplistic or corny-sounding choruses. And some of the drums could have done with a little more oomph. In the end, though, The FORCE is such a supremely streamlined 40-minute-plus album that the flaws are subtle and sporadic, rather than prominent and obvious.
They say that hip hop is a young man’s sport, but that stance makes less sense with each passing year. Hip hop turned 50 in 2023, so it’s not exactly a spring chicken itself. Each artform needs its army of custodians, leading or guiding the younger generations. LL Cool J appropriately ends the album with “The Vow,” coincidentally the only one out of 14 tracks that Q-Tip doesn’t produce. Rather, it’s J-S.A.N.D. from Lafayette, Louisiana, who’s behind the boards along with Kizzo. J-S.A.N.D. also shows up as one of the three younger rappers on the track with LL, the other two being Mad Squablz and Don Pablito. The strings and horns converge to create a cinematic atmosphere for all four MCs to deliver blistering verses. It’s the perfect way to end the album: a 56-year-old rapper, 40 years in the game, trying to do his part in elevating the future of rap. LL has never been known to be a mentor of virtual unknowns; the first two times he tried on wax never quite worked out. Let’s hope the third time’s the charm.
Ultimately, chalk up The FORCE as a mostly successful mid-age rap album. With his sharpened rhyming skills, topical exploration, and justified declarations of his greatness—combined with the sonic guidance and vocal assistance of a sound Q-Tip—LL delivers one of the better efforts in his catalog, as well as his best one since Mr. Smith. No longer with the pressure to match the commercial viability of his ‘80s and ‘90s heyday, LL has wizened into the equivalent of a West African sage telling children instructive tales by the moonlight. This is how you do it, kids. This is how you become a hip hop legend: the first solo superstar, at a time when hip hop was identified with crews and groups; the only rapper with hits across three decades and his hefty contribution of great songs and albums; the only emcee with a reasonable level of mainstream visibility four decades into his career; and, consequently, one of the very few people who can justifiably make this statement in an interview with Algerian-French journalist Mehdi Maizi: “I think one day people are going to wake up and realize that LL Cool J is the most important rapper that ever existed.”
Now, let’s hope he doesn’t make us wait for another 11 years for the next album.
