First off congratulations to the late great Tupac Shakur and his friends, family, and fans. The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame is a grand honor for musicians and musical excellence. Many associate The Rock & Roll Hall Fame with strictly “Rock & Roll” but The Hall has embraced Black since the very beginning. The first Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame class in 1986 consist of James Brown, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Little Richard. With a lineup like that clearly The Hall set the tone for getting things right. When it came to Hip-Hop the first inductees were Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5, RUN-DMC, The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, & N.W.A (in that order). No one would or could deny the impact and cultural influence of the following acts. Groundbreaking staples in the culture of Hip-Hop and the expansion of this culture becoming a genre. But even with those inductees it seems as if that the great James Todd Smith aka LL Cool J has been skipped over. Truthfully speaking LL should have been inducted after The Beasties. On the other hand Public Enemy can’t be denied and there is no way to argue otherwise. But when N.W.A was inducted I started getting the feeling that the committee doesn’t even consider the cultural impact of LL Cool J. Now the time has come for yet another class to be inducted and 2Pac gets in The Hall before LL. Don’t get me wrong Pac’s impact on Hip-Hop culture and the Rap industry in general is HUGE. Pac hit people where it really matters in their hearts and in their mind. I think LL should have made it by now by the same premise that Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5, RUN-DMC, & The Beastie Boys made it on which is sheer impact and groundbreaking records alone. “I Need A Beat”, “I Can’t Live Without My Radio”, “Rock The Bells”, & “BAD” are flat out game changers that changed the sound and approach of Hip-Hop music at a very early stage of the genre.
“Computerize, and the engineer’s eyes
Have to be very acute, education level high”
In 1985 most emcees were not rapping with that type of rhyme pattern that LL was rhyming with on “I Need A Beat” and when you factor in that he was 17 years of age at the time (probably 16 when he wrote it) it’s mind blowing. This kid jumped in a game where everyone at the time was grouped up and he stood alone as a solo artist. Even the great Kool Moe Dee was in a group. Kurtis Blow may have been Hip-Hop’s first solo artist to sign a major record deal but LL Cool J was Hip-Hop’s first solo superstar. Not only was he apart of the groundbreaking class of Hip-Hop but he out lasted everyone that he came up with and out lasted most of the people that came after him and long after him. The marriage of LL Cool J and Rick Rubin is what gave us the 16 bar verse 8 bar chorus format in Hip-Hop music. LL Cool J’s “I Need Love” is the record that showed us that a Hip-Hop love song could actually work. LL Cool J showed labels that a solo rap artist could actually be extremely successful. I know The Hall won’t look at this but LL Cool J’s battle rap record untouchable.
“Battle anybody I don’t care who you tell!!!”
There is a story that Sauce Money tells about an encounter that he and Jay Z had outside of a club when they were on the come-up. At the time LL Cool J was a superstar and Sauce & Jay were unknown emcees just looking to battle somebody famous. LL took them up on that battle and spit right there with them when he could have jumped in his limo and left the hungry emcees in the dust.
When it comes to battles LL has BODIES and these W’s LL has racked up span through decades. He has even made some of the greatest emcees of all-time back down from a battle. Outside of the battle component we would be hard pressed to name emcees at LL’s caliber that could go hit for hit with him. The man has hits in The 80’s, 90’s, & 2000’s that unheard of in a genre like Hip-Hop that changes so frequently.
We can all agree that Def Jam is the greatest Hip-Hop label of all-time. Well, Def Jam is the house that LL Cool J built. I personally believe that LL’s success in avenues outside of music and in other forms of entertainment cloud one’s judgement on his accomplishments in Hip-Hop. I also believe that LL not having as many quotables as some other emcees who frequently are mentioned when we speak of the best emcees of all-time works against him as well. People who say that must not remember LL’s epic appearance on EPMD’s “Rampage”.
Again, no disrespect to Pac but LL Cool J was a Hip-Hop legend before Pac even dropped his debut album. LL has already been skipped over chronologically by the committee of The Hall twice and this year makes a third time. It’s hard to believe that LL Cool J will actually ever make it into The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame and it’s actually sad. Maybe LL needs a biopic to remind people how important and rich that his legacy and impact is.