L.L. Cool J Takes The Rap

“You ain’t gettin’ no scoop, lookin’ at me with your beady eyes!”

James Todd Smith, a/k/a L.L. Cool J, laughs as he wards off the questions of your trusty reporter, but he isn’t kidding. Although the hottest solo artist in rap can talk a blue streak when he’s entertaining the fans, it’s an altogether different story when the audience is the nosy old press. Then the silver-tongued poet cheerfully retreats into a slick routine that reveals none of the man’s inner hopes, wishes and dreams—the things we the public have come to demand of our media favorites.

Instead, Cool J dismisses all questions about his style, motives, and other personal stuff by explaining, “It’s not an image. I’m not frontin’. This is me. This is how I am.” In other words, on the day of our encounter, he is a person wearing a Kangol hat, undershirt, gym shorts, sneakers (with laces), and various items of gold jewelry. None of this is a statement, remember; it’s just the way he is. So back off, sucker!

Should you care to know more, his new Bigger And Defter LP reveals Cool J to be an intrepid he-man (“I’m Bad”), a reckless, overheated lover (“Kanday”) and a romantic smoothie (“I Need Love”), all in one. The total dude, you might say, a natural mixture of John Wayne, Casanova and Cary Grant. And I’m the King of England.

At least I can see this evasive action coming. Before sitting down with Cool J for a few lively rounds of verbal hide and seek, I get to watch him spout jive at a press conference for college DJs and reporters at Columbia Records’ New York headquarters. Displaying the slippery instincts of a master politician, he ducks the few dangerous questions and answers the others with bland, inoffensive pleasantries. If he’s so crafty at the tender age of 19, imagine what Cool J will be like at the advanced age of 25.

Anyway, I have to admire the facility with which he brushes aside remarks about violence at rap concerts. “Somebody snatches a chain and now it’s rap’s fault,” Cool J snorts. “What can I do? I’m not a policeman. At least rappers are presenting positive images.”

But pressed about the need to make statements to the fans on hot issues like drugs and safe sex, he begs off, saying, “Adults listen to slogans—kids don’t. Here’s how I feel about drugs. You hear about ’em on TV, and you know about Jack down the block, who got real skinny and lost his hair. You make the choice. Listen, if I go up to a basehead and say, ‘Stop smoking crack,’ he doesn’t care.

“I’m very religious and I believe in God, but I keep my beliefs in my heart and make music that kids like. Kids come to my show to have fun, not to hear how bad the world is. I don’t promote violence and I don’t promote drugs. Simple as that.”

Most of the questions are less troublesome, however, allowing Cool J to play a likeable cat indeed. A record company shill urges him to mention a recent good deed, prompting our man to mumble, “Yeah, I did a benefit for some kids whose IQ levels were kinda shaky. It had something to do with summer jobs and birth control, too.”

And when the stooge asks, “Did you feel good about that?,” he responds quietly, “Yeah, I felt real good about that.” Suddenly it hits me: supertough L.L. Cool J, scourge of evildoers everywhere and conqueror of fair hearts, is embarrassed! So much for the stereotype of the obnoxious rapper. In fact, Cool J goes out of his way to downplay his sometimes abrasive cockiness by explaining, “You’ve gotta be confident—that’s the rapper’s whole game,” and pledges to remain unspoiled by success. "HI never get a nose job and go Hollywood. I’d rather stay with my grandmother in Queens and chill out,” he concludes.

Many years ago, Popeye the Sailor Man said it best: “I am what I am.”

Then the group homage ends and I’m ready to go one on one with L.L. Cool J, whose career happens to be on a very steep upward curve at the moment. Bigger And Defter reportedly sold a halfmillion the first day out, and even if that’s the usual record biz hype, there’s no doubt he’s hot stuff, and deservedly so.

The LP will make believers out of those curious souls willing to be convinced, because it’s as varied as all get-out. In addition to the usual in-your-face bragfests, there’s a mutated update of “Johnny B. Goode” called “Go Cut Creator Go,” not to mention “The Do Wop,” a derivative of ’50s vocal groups, and, perhaps most startling, “I Need Love,” a smoochy, lights-down-low come-on Julio Iglesias must envy. As Cool J correctly notes, “That ballad proves rap can be anything.”

Bigger And Defter concludes with a little 30-second interlude called “On The III Tip,” which reveals Cool J’s state of mind during the making of the LP. “You didn’t think I could do it again, did you? Another album! The joke’s on you, Jack! Take that!” He laughs, suggesting he felt he had a lot to prove with his follow-up to the gold LP, Radio.

“I was saying that to the doubters, who were sleeping on me and thought I was a bad person,” he explains. “They didn’t know I’m very religious and worked hard for all this.”

Above all, perhaps, the album was a declaration of independence from Rick Rubin, the producer of his first LP. The pudgy (white) creative force behind Def Jam Records, Rubin has received notoriety from his work w“h everyone from Run-D.M.C. and the Beastie Boys to the Cult and Slayer. Perhaps too much notoriety: Cool J bristled at the press conference when someone suggested it was a compliment that Rick chose to work with him on Radio, and tenses up when the name arises again.

"He’s alright. Rick did a hell of a job on my first album, when I was a naive teenager, and I’ll always respect him for that. But he didn’t make my record, he did it with me. I wrote all the words and he did most of the music. My album was the first one he ever produced, so I gave him his start and he gave me mine. We didn’t work together on Bigger And Deffer because it was time for me to spread my wings, sink or swim, be a man. I was a little nervous at first but I had to just get out there and do it.”

Cool J has even less interest in discussing the Beastie Boys and their antics, shrugging, “They do what they gotta do. I don’t support it or tear it down.” Asked if he thinks their massive success had anything to do with skin color, when superior black rappers enjoy smaller followings, he declines to go for the bait. “Whether they’re white or not, they sold four million albums. Can’t nobody take that from ’em. Evidently, they found the right formula.

“Listen, they’re not hurtin’ nothin’. They’re not taking anything away from blacks. I’m gettin’ mine. I’m glad the Beasties are doing well, because it opens up new doors for rap. Maybe next time someone that buys their record will say, ‘Let’s check out what L.L. Cool J’s doing.’ ” (Is this guy diplomatic, or what?)

Likewise, he thinks the rap-metal connection is good for all concerned. “White kids should be able to get into rap; it’s good music. If you can like metal you can like rap. They’re both kinds of music that people have tried to suppress. Rap will open doors for metal, too. A lot of people first noticed rap because they like breakdancing, thought it was cute. Metal ain’t cute.”

The L.L. Cool J saga in a nutshell: “I started listening to rappers like Grandmaster Flash & The Fearless Five when I was 11. Later I sent a tape to Rick Rubin when he was living in the New York University dormitory, and here I am.”

Of course, there’s a little more to it than that. “I’m from Queens, middle class all the way, trees, grass, remote-control garage doors.” And he wasn’t an instant success. “Even though I had a lot of ambition, I didn’t know if I’d make it. To be a success, you need God, luck and talent, in that order. There was a point when I was gonna quit, but my mother bought a rhythm machine to keep me going. If I hadn’t continued, I probably would have just gone on to college, but that would have been corny as a motherfucker. Very disappointing.

“Just listen to The Breakthrough’ (on Bigger And Deffer). It sums up my whole career.”

Now he’s a big star who insists he doesn’t feel like one. “I haven’t changed a bit. The only way I’ll ever move out of Queens is if it gets too hectic and the kids drive me out.

But is L.L. Cool J really an ordinary guy? Judge for yourself. The following are a few of his favorite things:

Movie: Scarface, Lethal

Weapon, Nightmare on Elm Street

Actor: Al Pacino in Scarface

Drink: Virgin Pina Colada

Ice Cream: Vanilla Fudge Twirl Sport: Football

Rock Act: Bon Jovi Songwriter: Lionel Ritchie Writer: Edgar Allan Poe,

Langston Hughes

He likes women, too, as one listen to the utterly sleazy “Kanday” proves. You might wonder, though, if someone from a close-knit family doesn’t feel just a little sheepish about mouthing X-rated lyrics like “Her tongue is sticky/And hickies are her specialty.” Cool J says not, adding, “If I have a pelvic move in my show, I can’t not do it just because my mother’s there. I gotta satisfy my fans. She understands that it’s part of my act.” After all, y’all, L.L. Cool J stands for Ladies Love Cool James.

Today, Cool J compares himself to a “fighter. Before I was the challenger. Then I took the belt. Now I’ve gotta fight to keep it.” Mind you, his rhyme ain’t done by a long shot. “I’m gonna keep gettin’ iller and iller. (That’s good, for all you non-rap types.) I wanna keep growing,” he adds, suppressing a yawn. “I don’t wanna be the next Michael Jackson, but I’d like to sell a comparable amount of records. You gotta learn to crawl first, though. I’m still struggling.”

And someday, when he’s old and gray (maybe at age 30), L.L. Cool J will “bow out gracefully. I’ll know when it’s time to quit. Then I can sit back and chill and listen to what other people are making.”

In the meantime, though, L.L. Cool J will continue to get bigger, deffer, and badder than we’ll ever be. You have been warned.