LL Cool J on Donald Trump, Quincy Jones and hip hop culture

Don’t call it a comeback.

Rapper, film and TV star LL Cool J has a new album out called ‘The FORCE’, 40 years after he became one of hip-hop’s earliest and biggest icons.

He spoke to Symeon Brown about staying at the top, the late great Quincy Jones, and the state of the hip-hop industry, still reeling from charges of sex abuse brought against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs.

Symeon Brown: 40 years, hits on hits on hits. What’s the secret?

LL Cool J: You’ve got to love it. You’ve got to care. I feel like I’m doing the thing that I was born to do. It goes back to, it’s something may he rest in peace, Quincy Jones always told me, which is ‘science and soul’, you know what I’m saying? The soul is the imagination, the creativity, the fun. Your picture, shirt, my jacket. We’re moving around. The science is like how it was designed, how it was created, how it was sung. So it’s a combination of both of those things. It’s an art form that’s for the people, you know? So when I made ‘The FORCE’ I had a real purpose and a real mission. Know what I’m saying, to create something that was fun and relatable to real people. It shouldn’t always feel like we’ve got an ascot and a long cigarette holder just because you’re making a record, like I just don’t totally get that.

Symeon Brown: The place of hip hop, when it was as an emergent kind of countercultural force, is it still a voice of the powerless or is it now the voice of power?

LL Cool J: That’s a perfect question. Perfect. So my record, ‘The FORCE’, is counterculture. It is me speaking truth to power in the sense that I’m talking about real experiences, real life. ‘Look at Mama, she in the kitchen, she’s swinging her hips and dipping the chicken in flour.’ I’m really talking about real life. But there is a side of hip hop that has become so dominant that people are kind of leaning on the elite thing. And the reason why the elite thing is so appealing is because we live in a world now filled with social media. The elitism plays well in 30 second clips.

Symeon Brown: And by elitism, you mean displays of wealth?

LL Cool J: Not just displays of wealth, but a display of wealth that feels like somebody is looking down their nose at you. You know what I’m saying? It’s not that, we all want to get money, don’t get me wrong, because I’m from the West. I want to get paper. Don’t get me wrong, I’m about the bag. I’m just saying that when I listen to Bob Marley’s music, I don’t care how much money he had. I want to listen to the song, bro. We all know Michael Jackson had money, he wasn’t singing about it in every song.

Symeon Brown: I mean, talking about a man who liked talking about money, Donald Trump. He’s just become president again.

LL Cool J: Hey, he won. What else can I say, bro? He won. Everybody has the right to their opinion, bro. I’m not here to tell people who to vote for. I’m going to do what I do. You know what I’m saying? If that’s how they feel, good luck with that. Bust it open for him baby, do your thing.

Symeon Brown: In the week the world has gained Trump as president, we also lost Quincy Jones, the man held as the greatest producer of all time, who was once called your mentor.

LL Cool J: He’s irreplaceable, but his body of work will last forever. There’s no way to really measure his impact on popular culture because he’s impacting culture in places where people don’t even realise that he created the gravity that’s holding them down. So that’s what we lost in that. He was a great man. I loved hanging out with him, it was like being with James Bond every day. He was the coolest dude in the world, man, I’m telling you.

Symeon Brown: He believed in you, 40 years on it has paid off. You’ve been a huge star. But you’re seeing, in the industry itself, hip hop, is it at an existential crisis? If you think about the revelations around Diddy and the charges. How does the scene feel about itself right now? Do you feel concerned about hip hop?

LL Cool J: Here would be my question about that. Every person who’s ever got in any sort of trouble had some sort of profession. So what does that say about those professions?

Symeon Brown: So you don’t think that Diddy’s charges relate to hip hop and the culture, particularly around women?

LL Cool J: I understand what you’re saying. But just because there appears to be a correlation doesn’t make it so.

Symeon Brown: It’s not just Diddy, Russell Simmons and you also have…

LL Cool J: Okay, so my question would be, what about people who aren’t in hip hop then? Do you see what I’m saying? That’s why I’m saying we got to be careful with the correlation, because a lot of people get in trouble every day. A lot of people. Athletes, construction workers, mailmen, postal workers.

Symeon Brown: Sure, and if there was an issue in journalism or our industry, we would be looking internally and thinking, ‘do we have a problem in our industry?’ Do you think that conversation is happening in hip hop?

LL Cool J: I think that’s a very complicated question because if you have a hundred people in the industry. If 15 people are doing something crazy, is that a problem with the industry? Yes…

Symeon Brown: It is, if 85 protect them.

LL Cool J: Yeah, but that’s the question. We don’t know if people are being protected or not. You can never know. Does hip hop have a problem? Absolutely. But so does the whole world. The one thing you know for sure is that when you hear that statement, ‘be the change you want to see’, that’s what you really can control. Okay, if hip hop is the problem, well I’m not going to be the part of the problem. If the world has a problem, well I’m not going to be part of the problem. You dig what I’m saying?