LL Cool J revealed that he’s learning how to balance his acting career with his passion for music.
In a recent interview with The Independent, the Grammy Award-winning rapper spoke candidly about feeling conflicted after his acting career took off in the 1990s.
“The more success I had with acting, the less I wanted to do it because it was taking me further and further away from music,” he admitted. “Later on, I realised I could find the right balance to do everything I wanted to do, but it took time.”
While LL Cool J has since appeared in numerous TV shows and movies, including Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, In the House, Any Given Sunday, and the long-running drama NCIS: Los Angeles, he struggled to find time for music, and went on an 11-year hiatus after the release of his 2013 album Authentic.
But now the rapper is back with his latest album, the Q-Tip-produced The Force, and despite a long production period and some bumps along the way, he’s ultimately delivered a deeper, more personal work than ever before, in which he talks “about women and romance, but also about new things on every track.”
“I wanted to show that I can continue to make good work and grow as a hip-hop artist,” he explained, “because, frankly, we’re used to artists putting out mediocre work that’s not as impactful or innovative as their first few albums.”
“I want to show that just like a film director doesn’t lose their creativity after 40 years, hip-hop doesn’t lose its creativity after 40 years,” LL Cool J continued. “As long as hip-hop artists stay curious, stay interested and keep coming up with new ideas, there’s no reason they can’t continue to be innovative.”
Despite being considered mainstream, the rapper said he ultimately learned that as an artist, “you have to stay true to yourself.”
LL Cool J was also inspired by artists like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Bob Dylan, “who wrote about things that were important to them. I don’t want to be boxed in by a mainstream image of myself. I want to create what I want to create and that’s what will last. So I said, ‘OK, I’m going to write a song that’s cool to me.'”
He added: “I do it wholeheartedly and I will accept whatever the outcome may be.”
