The hipsters got hipped to L.L. Cool J, the seventeen-year-old from Queens, New York, when his insistent "I Can't Live Without My Radio" rocked the movie Krush Groove. Banging and clapping and squealing with hiphop rhythms, the song is a forceful defense of those gargantuan cassette players that torment subway riders: both a funny and a defiant theme. "Walking down the street to the hardcore beat/While my JVC vibrates the concrete," goes the uncompromising rap, a little slice of inner-city life.
Like Run-D.M.C. and Whodini, the best of the latter-day rappers, L.L. Cool J keeps the orchestration minimal, the words clever and the beat enormous. The record really booms. Though it
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may be most original in the rap ballads "I Want You" and "I Can Give You More," in which puppy love is given a pounding, it's the sassier, dance-worthy songs that make this record such an irresistible party. "Rock the Bells," a mighty boasting rap, offers a huge
donging bass line interrupted by chiming guitar notes, marrying heavy metal and hip-hop like "King of Rock."
Though L.L. Cool J steers clear of most of the braggadocio that used to be the point of rapping, he hits the mark with a good put-down in "You Can't Dance." "Why are you so stiff?/Is it something that your mother did?" he chides. "Maybe you grew up around can't-dance people/When you were a can't-dance kid." L.L. Cool J offers more than tough attitude: he's a good songwriter (who just can't sing). There's a whole cast of characters alongside the can't-dance loser, including "the largest liar ever created/You and Pinocchio are probably related" (from "That's a Lie") and "Dear Yvette," who's the "mascot of the senior boys' locker room" and the opposite of the hard-to-get Roxanne, last year's favorite rap girlfriend.
Least successful is an a cappella rap called "El Shabazz" that just sounds like some goofing off at the end of a recording session. It's a vocal imitation of Doug E. Fresh, a very original artist whose twelve-inch single "The Show," on Reality Records, is a must buy for anybody interested in rap music – and anybody interested in hearing someone a cool kid like L.L. Cool J would try to emulate. (RS 471)
DEBBY BULL
With his classic debut album, (and the first full-length released by Def Jam), hip-hop pioneer LL Cool J became a full-blown rap superstar. Backed by chunky '80s beats courtesy of ultra-producer Rick Rubin, Uncle L comes through with timeless mega-hits such as "I Can't Live Without My Radio" and "Rock The Bells.
