LL Cool J relearned ‘how to rap’ on his first album in 11 years, ‘The FORCE.’ Here’s how

NEW YORK (AP) — The Grammy award profitable rapper-actor- creator LL COOL J will launch his first new album in 11 years, “The FORCE” in September — 40 years into his hip-hop profession.

Not that he hasn’t been making music in that point. “I’ve at all times tinkered round within the studio right here and there,” he informed The Related Press over Zoom. However over the past two or so years, inspiration actually struck. He began working with a producer and pursuing music-making extra significantly.

Then he hit a roadblock. “I simply felt just like the tracks that this producer was giving me had been higher than the songs that I used to be writing,” he mentioned. Then the late Phife Dawg of A Tribe Known as Quest got here to him in a dream. “He informed me, ‘Yo, man, that new music you’re engaged on is nice, man.’ However he had a glance on his face like a Cheshire cat, like he was mendacity to me,” he says.

It was a wakeup name — and one thing informed him to name A Tribe Known as Quest’s Q-Tip to work collectively. The transfer labored: Q-Tip produced each observe and made all of the beats on “The FORCE,” which might be launched Sept. 6.

LL COOL J describes the method of constructing his 14th studio album as “going again to the drafting board and studying tips on how to rap once more … ensuring I used to be actually impressed by the issues I used to be saying. That’s why there isn’t a variety of fluff on this album.”

“The LeBrons, the Stephs, the Jordans and the Kobes, all of them return to the drafting board, they at all times attempt to make themselves higher” he continued. “I wasn’t attempting to do stylish, and I wasn’t attempting to recapture something I did earlier than.”

“The FORCE” is an ingenious rap report, knowledgeable by LL COOL J’s prolonged profession, pertaining to varied themes, like the ability of self-motivation (“Ardour”), full-force swag (“Murdergram Deux,” a long-awaited collab with Eminem ), not-safe-for-work sensuality (“Proclivities” that includes Saweetie) and cautionary tales, as evidenced within the lead single, “Saturday Evening Particular” that includes Rick Ross and Fats Joe.

Notably efficient is the one-two punch of “Huey within the Chair,” — a reference to a well-known picture of Black Panther Get together co-founder Huey P. Newton — what the rapper describes as “taking a stand for what you consider in,” into the funky downtown beats of “Basquiat Vitality,” a celebration of the namesake artist’s progressive spirit. The rapper says the American icons share a capability to “specific their private truths,” one thing he aimed to do on this album.

In that method, “The FORCE,” which stands for “frequencies of actual inventive vitality,” turned an unofficial mantra for the discharge.

“That’s what we needed to current to the world,” he mentioned. “It’s about eager to vibrate at a excessive stage.”

And following the fiftieth anniversary of hip-hop final 12 months, LL COOL J says he “needed to point out folks that artists which have had lengthy storied careers, so to talk, could make trendy contributions to hip-hop which have a serious affect. I hadn’t seen that accomplished earlier than. It was one other problem: Can I create one thing that sounds new and contemporary?”

He’s not leaning into fads right here — anticipate to hear rappers truly rapping — however nobody ought to contemplate this a play at nostalgia. The album is stacked with options, even past Ross, Fats Joe, Saweetie and Eminem: Snoop Dogg, Sona Jobareth, Busta Rhymes, Nas, Mad Squablz, J-S.A.N.D. and Don Pablito are amongst them.

“The one factor I needed to do is, I needed to fulfill folks the place I’m at now. I wasn’t attempting to be preachy,” he mentioned. “I’m not attempting to inform folks essentially tips on how to stay. I did wish to specific with folks the place I’m at artistically at this level in my life and provides them that. After which they will take that and do no matter they need with it.”

“The FORCE” Monitor Listing:

1. “Spirit of Cyrus” (feat. Snoop Dogg)

2. “The FORCE”

3. “Saturday Evening Particular” (feat. Rick Ross and Fats Joe)

4. “Black Code Suite” (feat. Sona Jobarteh)

5. “Ardour”

6. “Proclivities” (feat. Saweetie)

7. “Put up Fashionable”

8. “30 Decembers”

9. “Runnit Again”

10. “Huey In Da Chair” (feat. Busta Rhymes)

11. “Basquiat Vitality”

12. “Reward Him” (feat. Nas)

13. “Murdergram Deux” (feat. Eminem)

14. “The Vow” (feat. Mad Squablz, J-S.A.N.D., and Don Pablito)