Happy 35th Anniversary to LL Cool J’s debut album Radio, originally released November 18, 1985.
Krush Groove (1985) isn’t a particularly good movie. Directed by veteran Michael Schultz (Car Wash, Cooley High & The Last Dragon), the film tells a fictionalized version of the creation of Def Jam Records and Rush Management. Blair Underwood plays the Russell Simmons stand-in, Russel Walker, while Rick Rubin plays himself. Sheila E. plays Walker’s love interest, while all three members of Run-DMC have speaking roles. The film is mostly notable for its musical performances, which feature Kurtis Blow, The Fat Boys, New Edition, the Beastie Boys, and others.
Which brings us to the best scene in the film, featuring one of the all-time great first screen appearances. Rick Rubin is holding auditions for new acts in what’s supposed to be his NYU dorm room. Along with DMC, Jam Master Jay, and Jeckyll & Hyde (R.I.P. Andre Harrell), they watch singer Nayobe sing, and then decide to end the day’s auditions. In strides James “LL Cool J” Smith, flanked by Cut Creator (his DJ) and Earl Love. Rubin and his crew try to kick him out, with Jay even pantomiming going into his jacket, ready to pull out a pistol. LL, unfazed, turns to Cut Creator and utters, “BOX!” Cut Creator presses play on his massive boom box, and LL performs his first verse from “I Can’t Live Without My Radio.”
In that minute-and-a-half of screen time, it’s clear that LL Cool J is going to be a star. He practically sweats charisma, stalking and sliding across the scene, an effortless dynamo, seizing the audience’s attention. His presence is magnetic, and his celebrity potential is as plain as day.
Though Run-DMC are credited with creating hip-hop’s new school sound, LL Cool J is the architect of much of its attitude and swagger. He wasn’t hip-hop’s first superstar (that would be Kurtis Blow), but he was its first potentially transcendent solo artist. The Queens-born emcee largely defined what it meant to be an emcee from the mid-’80s all the way to the present, and in many ways today’s hip-hop icons are following his blueprint. Radio, released 35 years ago, is the type of album that only could have been created by a brash and cocky young Black man, determined to succeed on his own terms and willing to take your respect by sheer force of will.
Radio isn’t quite LL Cool J’s best release, but it certainly holds up in its simplicity of execution. It’s a continued step in hip-hop’s evolution as an album-based medium. LL filled Radio with a good balance of innovative singles and well-crafted album cuts, displaying the full range of his lyrical talents.
The album also takes a different path musically than many of the other hip-hop releases that preceded it. While Run-DMC’s “Sucker MC’s” introduced the concept of rappers cutting loose over a drum machine, much of their other material at the time incorporated heavy doses of guitars, keyboards, and other live instrumentation to complement the programmed rhythm tracks. Radio was an album with 10 “Sucker MC’s.” Backed by neck-snapping drums and scratches by Bryan “Cut Creator” Philpot, the backdrop is conducive to making LL himself the center of attention.
Of course, the real story as to how LL Cool J was discovered by Def Jam is a lot less cinematic than what’s portrayed in Krush Groove. After the label released its first official single, “It’s Yours” by T La Rock & DJ Jazzy Jay, they started receiving demos from aspiring artists. Rubin would keep the demos in the shoebox in his dorm, rarely listening to them. Meanwhile, Adrock from the Beastie Boys would cut high school to hang out in Rubin’s dorm room, messing around with Rubin’s drum machine, and occasionally listening to the offerings in the shoe box. One day Adrock popped in a cassette from LL and was immediately hooked. He was impressed by the then teenager’s vocal style and vocabulary, and unique personality. Rubin, Simmons, and Adrock all met LL soon after, and the rest was history.
LL Cool J’s “I Need a Beat,” was Def Jam’s second single ever released. The track, produced by Adrock, but credited to Rick Rubin (or, “Reduced By…”), is about as raw as hip-hop got back then. It’s composed of a stuttering, shuffling drum track, put together on the aforementioned drum machine, accompanied by occasional scratches by Cut Creator. The song appears on Radio in a slightly remixed form, re-freaked by Jazzy Jay, but it’s still pure ruggedness.
LL was all of 16 at the time “I Need a Beat” was recorded, and he just oozes youthful bravado. Because it was the mid-1980s, he kicks five separate verses, each relatively brief, and all about the power of his rhymes. “I'm infiltrating your eardrums,” he asserts, “increasing their rate of vibration.” Though you can hear the influences of emcees like T La Rock and Mikey D, LL still established his own identity as a lyricist.
The success of “I Need a Beat” helped Def Jam land a distribution deal with CBS Records, which set the stage for their future domination. In the meantime, LL penned lyrics for Run-DMC’s King of Rock (1985) and began recording more material for what would become his debut album. His follow-up single was the aforementioned “I Can’t Live Without My Radio.” Rubin has said that Simmons suggested LL record a song about the radio in order to get played on the radio. Though Simmons said the recommendation was “bad input” on his part, it ended up working, and the song became the label’s first major hit.
The best parts of Radio come when LL records the type of tracks that he would become known for: hyper-aggressive lyrical performances filled with wall-to-wall braggadocio. And LL recorded few finer of these types of songs than the anthemic “Rock the Bells.” It’s the template for future hard-hitting tracks like “I’m Bad” and “Mama Said Knock You Out.”
The song is actually LL’s second version of the song; he originally recorded an over seven-minute version, with completely different lyrics, featuring an ample amount of cowbells during the breaks. While LL’s performance is strong on the original version, the rerecorded track ranks among the best of its era.
For one, LL starts things with an explosion, famously declaring, “LL Cool J is hard as HELL!!! / Battle anybody, I don’t care who you TELL!!!” The beat is more drum-driven rawness, lacking in any bells, but efficient in its arrangement and execution. Cut Creator is also precise with his scratches, bringing in stabs of hard rock guitars and vocal samples exactly where they need to be. LL’s vocals crackle with energy as he proclaims himself as the center of the musical universe. Much like Run-DMC, he positions himself in competition with the rock and pop stars of the era. “Cause it ain’t the glory days with Bruce Springsteen,” he raps. “I’m not a virgin so I know I’ll make Madonna scream / You hated Michael and Prince all the way, ever since / If their beats were made of meat, then they would have to be minced.”
Cut Creator is an essential and often overlooked part of Radio’s success. “Dangerous” is LL’s dedication to his DJ’s skill, similar to Run-DMC’s “Jam Master Jay” or “Jam Master Jammin’.” As the drum track constantly shifts and morphs, Cut Creator’s scratches are omnipresent. On “You’ll Rock,” he makes his turntable one of the central instruments on the song, “playing” the guitars and cutting up sounds and vocals. LL’s lyrics are just as sharp, as he boasts, “Crown Prince of rapping, godfather of beats / Emcees that I meet, I mutilate and defeat.”
Radio does have some lighter moments, as “You Can’t Dance” and “That’s a Lie” allow LL to showcase some of the smirking humor that would become familiar throughout his recording career. The subject matter of both tracks is pretty self-evident. LL first mercilessly mocks an anonymous partygoer with a complete lack of rhythm to the strains of b-boy favorite “Apache” by the Incredible Bongo Band. “You big no dancing disco-disaster, the worst I ever saw,” he clowns. “They should drop kick you in the neck and drag you off the floor.” Given the importance of b-boying to hip-hop culture during the mid ’80s, deriding someone’s ability to move on the dance floor was a serious insult.
Label head Russell Simmons appears on “That’s a Lie,” supplying fairly hilarious ad-libs (and copious amounts of falsehoods) in between LL’s brief verses. Again, LL is energetic and vociferous, spraying ridicule towards the guy who “lies about the lies that you lie about,” declaring him “Giant Jabber-Jaw, biggest liar I ever saw.”
Radio wouldn’t be an LL album if he didn’t turn his attention to the ladies. Recording a rap ballad was near unthinkable when the album was released, so LL makes subtle changes in the music’s construction and his lyrical pace and delivery. “I Can Give You More” and “I Want You” feature the same bare-bones drum programming as the rest of the album, with Rubin indicating that these are love songs by adding a piano key-based instruments. “I Can Give You More” features minor piano tones, while “I Want You” favors some simple noodling around on the synthesizer. LL also modulates his vocal tone a bit, turning down the belligerence just enough so that he sounds passionate, but not overwhelming. Both songs are completely inoffensive, which isn’t true about the many love songs LL recorded in the subsequent decades.
The belligerence is definitely present on “Dear Yvette,” LL’s open letter to a girl who’s “going to be a freak until she’s 93.” Tracks like these seem pretty crude three-and-a-half decades later, as shaming promiscuity is frowned upon these days. But regardless of the sketchy content, the song features some of the best drum programming on the album. And the periodic chants of “WOO!” are an inspired flourish.
Of course, LL Cool J became every bit of the icon that he seemed destined to become in Krush Groove. He has one of the lengthiest and most storied careers of any emcee. He’s a star on the big and small screens, fronting a network hit (NCIS: Los Angeles) that’s run for over a decade. He even has a successful “Rock the Bells” radio show on SiriusXM.
Now in his early fifties, LL may not be that brash teenager anymore, but that same exuberance has shaped his career every step of the way. Albums like Radio serve as a reminder that much of hip-hop’s power is based in proving that you’re the best at your craft and making the audience recognize the conviction within your words.
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