LL Cool J Tickets Continued
LL Cool J signed to Def Jam in 1984 and released the
underground hit "I Need a Beat". The song was the first hit record
for Def Jam, and its success persuaded him to drop out of school to
record his first album, Radio. The album was released to
critical acclaim, as LL Cool J was one of the first rappers to
use conventional song structure to make pop-oriented rap. "I Can't
Live Without My Radio" and "Rock the Bells" were successful and
helped the album go platinum. In 1987, he released Bigger and
Deffer. The ballad "I Need Love" was one of the first pop-rap
songs to be a hit.
In 1990, LL Cool J released Mama Said Knock You Out,
easily the hardest record he had ever made. It spawned three hit
singles, "The Boomin' System", "Around the Way Girl" and the
hard-hitting title track, which is arguably his signature tune. The
single "Mama Said Knock You Out" received special notice after LL
Cool J's dynamic performance of it during an episode of MTV
Unplugged. It was also featured in the film "The Hard Way". The album
included themes of police misconduct, spirituality along with
back-to-basics hip-hop party rocking and eventually went on to sell
over 2 million copies.
LL Cool J starred in "In the House", an NBC sitcom, before
releasing his 1995 album Mr. Smith, which went on to sell over
2 million copies. Its singles "Doin' It" and "Loungin" were two of
the biggest songs in 1996 and both songs' music videos were hugely
successful on MTV. Another of the album's singles, "Hey Lover",
featured Boyz II Men and eventually became one the first rap music
videos to air on American VH1. The song also earned LL Cool J
a Grammy.
LL Cool J's latest studio album, Todd Smith, was
released in April 2006. It includes collaborations with Ginuwine, Juelz Santana, Teairra Mari and Freeway. The first
single was the Jermaine Dupri produced "Control Myself", a song with
singer Jennifer Lopez.
