STILL KNOCKIN' THEM OUT

By David E. Thigpen

There's an oft heard phrase in the record business that could apply to the career span of many a young rapper: "Here today, gone later today." It's easy to understand why. Rap fans are among the most demanding and ruthlessly trendy. After three or four albums, even the music's hottest stars--remember Hammer and Tone Loc?--fade away as fans move on to tomorrow's new hip flavor.

All of which makes the career of LL Cool J something remarkable. At 29 the New York City rapper (born James Todd Smith) has just released his eighth album, Phenomenon, and done what no other rapper has: remained at the top of the charts for more than a decade. LL's career spans virtually the entire rap era.

The secret of his longevity rests in his musical roots. He cut his teeth in the early 1980s, when rap was still largely playful entertainment--an intricate mix of bare rhythms, verbal acrobatics and sharp humor. As rap's agenda grew more urgent--the thundering political nationalism of Public Enemy, the corrosive social critiques of gangsta rappers like N.W.A.--LL continued to build his career on the genre's original foundations. The approach worked. Since his first record, I Need A Beat, appeared in 1984, five of his subsequent seven albums have gone platinum.

One of his few missteps, 1993's 14 Shots to the Dome, was an unfortunate foray into gangsta rap and a poor fit with LL's good-guy image. It was a lesson he did not ignore. "Now, no matter how the tide is going," he says, "I try to keep my ship on my own course."

Phenomenon recaptures the formula that has made him so durable--a sharp, effervescent mixture of bouncing party anthems, street-corner bravado, bawdy tale telling and, not least, smooth romantic ballads. Rap, often misogynistic, generally has little use for romance, but LL found a way to make it work, and it became his signature. In fact, his initials actually stand for Ladies Love Cool James. Although he'll probably always be remembered for high-decibel party hits like 1985's I Can't Live Without My Radio, three of his biggest smashes--I Need Love (1987), Around the Way Girl (1990) and Hey Lover (1996)--are romantic odes that galvanized his female audience and revealed a sentimental side that most rappers dared not show. LL is rap's first romantic hero.

The new album also reveals the heart of a musical conservative. It samples soul and R. and B., and every now and again falls back on a vintage rhythm that could have come from one of LL's early records. "I don't strive to be on the cutting edge of hip- hop," he admits. The song Phenomenon tries to deflate the gangsta mythology, asking, "Does she want a thug/ Or does she want real love?" Then there's Candy, which LL describes as "a celebration of being with a woman and starting a family." Two years ago, he married Simone Johnson, the mother of his three children.

Using rap as a launching pad, LL is attempting to become a crossover phenomenon. Right now all his stars are lining up auspiciously. In January he performed at the presidential Inaugural. He already has a TV sitcom, UPN's In the House, in which he stars as a father figure and sports-clinic owner, and this fall he debuts in a national ad campaign for Coca-Cola. In September he published his autobiography, I Make My Own Rules, in which he urges his fans to "get beyond materialism." Of his music, he writes, "I know I need to be careful when it comes to violence and negativity. I realize that what I do transcends music and rap." A wise rap from the genre's elder statesman.

--By David E. Thigpen