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Call it a comeback

Music Features

13 shots to the dome

And here’s to LL Cool J, as he approaches a professional milestone with his new Exit 13 (Def Jam). More than 20 years ago, Rick Rubin signed the 17-year-old Queens MC to his burgeoning label Def Jam with a — get this — 10-album contract that would later balloon to 13! With LL having expressed annoyance over Def Jam’s less-than-enthusiastic promotion of his 12th record, Todd Smith, this would seem to be the end of the road for him and his label. So is this baker’s dozen any good? Will the Collected Works of LL Cool J make for a handsome box set? What do these albums sound like?

They sound a little like everything, actually. No rapper has so effortlessly appealed to such a broad audience. This doesn’t seem to be something LL had to learn; he had it figured out on his ’85 debut, Radio, which holds up as one of the genre’s classic front-to-back LPs. He can throw a party for the fellas: “LL Cool J is hard as hell” is how he opens “Rock the Bells.” And he can throw a party for the ladies: “One glimpse of your eyes and my heart beats fast,” he raps, softly, sweetly, on “I Want You.”

On every record he’s made, LL has juggled these two groups of fans, never more successfully than on 1990’s Mama Said Knock You Out. The title track, with its slashing, witty power, takes care of the veiny-armed weightlifters and then some (it makes DMX sound merely annoyed); “Around the Way Girl” rivals even Will Smith’s 1991 hit “Summertime” for lilting, intelligent charm. You can call this “selling out” if you like — many have. Me, I think it’s sort of genius. Have you heard 50 Cent’s love songs? He sounds like a paroled sex criminal on the brink of a relapse. It’s not so easy to have it both ways, but LL pulls this off. He’s like the man sprang fully formed from some grand focus group’s dull, mushy brain.

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