LL Cool J

0:00Hello. How you doing? How you doing, man? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good. Man, how's it going? We just went through this. You just asked me as I answered. I'm doing good. I was just telling Claudia and I like how you gave her a shout out and we came to party. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah. Yeah. That was the first year. Yeah. I gave home one and my man, Richie White. Yeah, I gave a couple of people. Yeah, it's funny. And we'll get to that song a little bit because you talk about the Grammys and that one too. But I guess we'll start with what you're up to today because you took over the next Twitter today. Why and how did that come about? What was it like? You know, I'm just, you know, look, when you live in LA and you know, you know, you just people just automatically assume that they

0:45just lump you in as a as a lake of fan. And it's like, you know, and you know, the next, the next over the years, I got to be honest, it's been really hard for me to root for them over the years because, you know, I've ever since passed you in promise me that they was going to be Jordan in the finals. And then they got they got beat for straight after they were up three. Oh, I've been I've been mad a little bit. But I'm just so happy for the Nick and happy for Carmelo to see them doing what they're doing that I just wanted to support them and sort of love because, you know, at the end of the day, I'm a New Yorker first and I got to represent. Of course, of course, talking about representing you talk about even on the opening track on Basel, you talk about being scared to come back into into the rap game. How can you how can you look up because I think

1:30that, you know, it's just like when you don't do something when you when you know, introducing music for so long, the people and times change and the errors change and, you know, the faces change and, you know, you know, different different different stars emerge and people, you know, kind of think that you're all doing something else and only care about doing something else. It's a it can it can it can rattle you. You know what I'm saying? But it makes you make you like make you a little fearful. But then at the end of the day, if you're an artist, that's true. And if you know you're prepared and if you know that you're gonna, you know, do your best. And if you know that you're gonna dig deep and really deliver

2:16what you believe to be the best material that you can at that time, then you get over that and you move past it. But I just wanted to be real transparent about where I'm at with it. You know what I mean? And are you writing the whole time? Well, you said you say you're off to another step. Are you writing lyrics? Like you constantly are you someone who's who's always who knows there's gonna be another musical project coming down the road. So are you always writing, keeping lyrics, thinking of beats? Always, I always, you know, I'm funny. I always think of lyrics. I don't always write them down. But I but I believe in like letting you know, I think you're sold me to refill sometimes of just stimulus and just the world and looking at the world and seeing things. And you know, you got them sometimes you got to let that you got to get every all of the energy surrounding whatever profit you're coming off and get out of your system so that you can just get people a brand new press perspective and a fresh outlook.

3:04And that's that's what I get. Yes. So how do you go about doing that for a record like authentic? You know, well, what I did was I just decided that I'm not gonna look at myself and I'm not gonna allow myself to be pigeonholed into a box and I'm not gonna go out and try to, you know, you know, fool the public by getting every young musician and every young rapper or pop artist that I can find and throw them on my album. I want to work with people that really appeal to my taste and that I really care about and respect as artists. And I'm gonna do something for the art of music and do something that I feel is making a contribution to the world of music instead of trying to make a try to create a pop moment. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. And anyone who puts bootsy

3:52columns on a record I just love immediately. And I like how people are trying to keep him in the consciousness of of today because he's one of those guys that should never be forgotten. He's amazing and everything he does. Absolutely, man. I think he's a super challenged the way he plays bass, you know, his history and his culture. I mean, you know, plus he sounds so good on that record. It's so funny and crazy. He makes me laugh so hard at the band for that record. Like, you know, I'm in the car with a ride, Sally Ride. It's the most of my time. I mean, that shit is just funny. Like, you know, I'm glad you get that, man, because bootsy. I think bootsy is amazing, man. You know, and I wanted to make a funk record. I thought I'm gonna get bootsy. I want to put Snoop on it. You know what I'm saying? Because Snoop over the years, you know, him and Dre, they would borrow

4:40from that bootsy, Paul, and it's Funkadelic vibes. So it just felt right to me. It felt organic to have Snoop on there with bootsy with me. Just going back to booty for a second here. What about like, how do you, how do you create beats when you have musicians in the room with you like Fitz or Eddie or someone like Bootsy? How does that all work when creating the music for a track? Well, you know what, sometimes I'll give up like I'll have a rough demo and we'll just have a rough demo of a track. You know, I'll have a, you know, some producers do a rough demo of the track. But then, you know, bootsy and I will discuss it or me and Eddie will discuss it. And then I'll tell them what I want, how I really envision a track with them on it and then they'll help me take it to the next level and then we'll

5:25get rid of all the stuff that, you know, all the stuff from the demo, just keep the rawness of it and let them just take it to another height. You know what I'm saying? Do you have rhymes that you go in with prior to that or does the beat influence the rhymes? You know what, a lot of times the beat influences the rhymes because the, it's kind of like, you know, it's an old quote that I heard and I don't even know if it's really Michael Lanza, but what was that? You know, he found, he used to say that the sculpture was, the sculpting was, the sculpture was inside of the marble before he, before he actually carved it. You know what I'm saying? And a lot of times the music kind of speaks to me that way too. But then I have other times where I do it without music because there's something inside there in a rhythm that are going on and out just writing without it. So it's all just based

6:14on what I'm saying. What's one of those tracks that you wrote before hearing any music for this record at least? Let me think about it. I don't know if any of them, let me think, let me go around the list. Not leaving you tonight with something that came up in my mind. I've actually been thinking about that record for, I know this is going to sound weird, but they're not leaving you tonight. The lyrics that I said in that song, I've been thinking about that for 20 years. And well, you know, I did you always in the other thing about the never just the specific lyrics like, you know, you know, pick up the pieces and the different things that that phrase took up the pieces like I have been thinking about that for years, like I don't want to put that in a record and it just had to be the right record. And I finally found

7:02the right joint and it put it in there to feel the right thing. Isn't that crazy? Like one line? Do you have other lines? 20 years? Like in a little book somewhere waiting to be waiting to be heard? Not in my mind. Oh, that's right. Yes, you told me that's right. We came to party. We're just going to go through a couple of songs here. We came to party. I mentioned the shout out to Claudine before, but it talks about hosting the Grammys in it. And I'm wondering how how that hosting a show like that influences you as a performer, as an actor, as a writer, does it change things? And do you bring things from your other careers into hosting and how it changes the hosting gig? Well, hosting definitely influences me in general, because I'm sitting here and I'm listening to Beach Boys and all of a sudden now I'm I care I like the Beach

7:50Boys. Like I never listened to the Beach Boys really. I thought they was a sort of commercial. But now I'm like liking the Beach Boys and I'm talking to Paul McCartney and now I'm delving into the Beatles catalog and I'm listening to Walrus and you know, and just different people, you know, just the different people I've met. It just really kind of blew the doors off and the lid off for everything that I thought about as an artist and made me realize that the sky is the limited music, you know, as long as it's great. Like Louis Armstrong said there's two kinds of music, the good kind and the bad kind. And he said he plays the good kind. You know what I'm saying? And it's um, and it's like, you know, I just so yeah, hosting the Grammys was an amazing

8:35experience. And you know, Quincy Jones told me he said, he said you never took during the process of making this record. I met with him and I sent him a copy of it. And he said to me, he said, you never, but you can never make music that is more or less than you are as a human being ever. So, you know, I get so evolving as a human being and you know, evolving as a man, I wanted my music to reflect that. You know, I wanted my music to reflect where I'm at now. And what I'm doing now, you know, all the things that I've seen, the place that I've been, the people I've met, I wanted the music to have that feeling in it. And I think it does. I think it's as it's as wildly and as as well traveled as I am, you know, under me. That's interesting. But it's still, but it's still true. It's still true

9:22to who I am though. It's still at pop, you know, but it's just hip hop without the governor of this quote unquote perception that some people try to maintain. I don't need that. I get away with all that. Right. Right. That's interesting. I was just thinking, I talked to a country band, the band Perry a couple weeks, no days ago now. And we were talking about being poetic and being honest and the difficulty between the two because obviously the songs, the words need to rhyme. You're trying to make something sound poetic, but you're also trying to stay honest at the same time. How do you ride that line? You know what? It's so funny you said that I think we came apart as a perfect example. When I say TMZ in my face and overall on my couch, I mean, if I was 16, that would just be something cool to say. Right. But for me, it's true. Now,

10:10I'm hosting the grams. I'm really being true. When I talk on, on, give me love when I talk about honesty, I'm afraid to get love. All of the different things. I mean, that's that vulnerability that that I'm showing. I mean, the record has to be, you're right. The record has to be honest. The songs have to be honest. And I think we listen to my album all the way down. You get a truthfulness and an honesty that's there. Yes, I'm trying. Yes, I want to be funny. And yes, you want to have a good time. And yes, you know, you want to do some sexy stuff. But it's honest. You know, this record is honest. It's true. That's why I call it authentic. You know, it's authentic. It's like, you know, there's no, there's no, I'm not like pretending I'm I'm in Queens and now I've hosted the grandis and now all of a sudden I'm rapping about being on the block in Queens. Like, where are we

10:56going? You know, you got to be who you are now. People know who you are now. You know, nobody's I'm not going to fool anybody into believing that that I'm the exact same guy that I was when I first came out with my first three four albums. So why even go there? Do who you are now? How would how would old L 17 18 year old L have reacted to the to the Brad basically think that happened? I don't know three weeks ago, four weeks ago, would it would you have acted differently in response to it? Oh, of course. Of course, I think I think the response. But you remember, first of all, I wouldn't have I would have never did the song because I wouldn't have been able to get my mind to grab it. I wouldn't have even understood it. Do it like, you know, because in order to in order to be able to tell

11:44people to be able to basically what the song was saying is is don't judge people based on symbols or how you feel about the symbols. Judge people based on how they feel about symbols. You know, don't don't judge a book by its cover. In other words, it's not about trivializing. It's not about trivializing the past, but it is about putting some of the baggage and the scars down and healing yourself with some of those scars so that you can move forward with some sort of a clean slate. If you feel like the playing field I'm saying, then obviously emotional baggage is not going to help you with an uphill class. No one, you know, and like so when people say to me, they like, oh, well, how could you, you know, you compared a

12:33do rag to a Confederate flag and it's like, first of all, I was what I was saying was not to trivialize the Confederate flag when you think about all the terrible things that are associated with that. But what I was saying is when you look at someone like Trayvon Martin and you look at what happened with this kid with his hoodie and you think about the million hoodie march, clothing does matter. Symbols do matter to certain people. There are, you know, as much as people, you know, tried to like sweep it under the rug, they are African-American to a judge by the clothing, by their baggy pants, by their do rags, by their hoodies. And there is a prison industrial complex that is full of kids that got judged because of that. I mean, that matters. So, so to act like that doesn't

13:19matter or somehow that's trivial in comparison to the Confederate flag is not purely truth. You know what I'm saying? There's another level to it. And, you know, so to me, to me, I think that I don't think that we should judge people purely based on on on how they look or what they look like or where they live or where they come from. I think we have to deal with people based on their character and who they are as individuals. That's good. I don't want to I don't want to harp on it too much. So we don't have too much time and I know you're you're probably defended yourself for about a month now about the song, which is good publicity for the I guess at the end of the day. But but I do want to talk about going on tour because how do you have to tour like NCIS would have probably wrapped what two three weeks ago something like that and then no no NCIS wrapped in a week. Oh, you're not done yet.

14:08No, no, no. Okay, all right. Yeah, wrapped in a week and then we're going on tour in about three weeks, I guess, May, May 23rd. May 24th is the first day, May 24th is the first day, May 23rd was the set update in Arizona and um to get it up and running and start rocking and you know, we're gonna have fun, you know, going to go on tour. And what we do with every interview, we wrap it up with five quick questions, one word answers. Okay, rotor studio. Wow, I know it's the same ones for everybody though. Yeah, Leonard McCartney, Leonard, Parker Biggie, Biggie, when you hear a song what usually

15:08hits you first lyrics melody or rhythm song you've written you're most proud of. I know today, man, I got so many right here today. Um, doing it, doing it. Oh, someone so much. We didn't be that song today. That's so funny. Um, and in one word, LL Cool J. Cool. Thank you very much.