Album: LL COOL J - THE FORCE

This album only has one serious flaw: LL COOL J didn’t open it with “OK you can call it a comeback”. Sorry, cheap joke (if you didn’t know, his classic hit “Mama Said Knock You Out” starts with the lyric “Don’t call it a comeback!” and this, his 14th album, is his first in 11 years).

But honestly no, there really isn’t a lot wrong with this record: LL is in fine voice and furious flow, and the beats – entirely produced by Q Tip from A Tribe Called Quest – are a reminder that old-school, sample-based hip hop can be as heavyweight, as compelling, as mind-bending as anything post-trap youngsters can come up with.

Perhaps because of his loverman styling early on, and his mainstream movie success later, LL has sometimes been written off by casual observer as more entertainer than hardcore rapper – but this has always been a canard, and he absolutely crushes the notion here. From the outset the record is a cascade of rhyme and imagery that touches every base within hip hop itself, and within the greater American psyche too. As the tracks progress the impressionistic torrent takes in gangster ethics, Black nationalism, action movie fantasies, stoner whimsy, bleak street life power plays, Islamic mysticism, absolute filth, some startlingly vivid images of life in the pandemic, and money talk galore: knitted together into a kaleidoscopic collage by the sureness of LL’s voice and the twists and turns of Tip’s beats and surprise twists like a vocal section from Gambian singer Sona Jobarteh on “Black Code Suite”.

This collage is clearly deliberately, artfully constructed – tracks called “Post Modern” and album high point “Basquiat Energy” make that very clear – but there’s also raw musical instinct at play. LL bouncing off Eminem in “Murdergram Deux” (a callback to LL’s 1990’s tonguetwisting “Murdergram”) is a masterclass in what “flow” means for rappers: Eminem is on the form of his life on this track, reigning in his wackier tendencies in favour of pure rhythmic discipline, yet LL outclasses him with simpler patterns, but more force of personality and musical assurance in delivery. Likewise he pushes other megastars – Snoop Dogg, Nas, Rick Ross – into supporting roles with only Busta Rhymes (over a loop of Can!) and, interestingly, the way younger Saweetie really matching him verse-for-verse. Now, the album isn’t without minor flaws: it’s an extremely rich brew, a lot to take in at one sitting, and it can just get wearing. But that’s barely a quibble: really, as comebacks go, this takes some beating.

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@joemuggs

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