For Promotional Use Only: LL Cool J - The Return of the G.O.A.T. (2008)

In 2008, James Todd Smith was bracing for what was about to be his final original album for his longtime label home, Def Jam Records. His pseudonym, LL Cool J, was synonymous with the seminal hip hop temple started by Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons pretty much from its inception, but those two had long left the brand to do business elsewhere, and the music industry had evolved to such a degree that LL felt like the old man at the club. So, much like everyone who refuses to admit that they’ve advanced in age, James wanted to do something that would appeal to the kids, to the younger generation who could potentially tell his story for years to come. This is why, even though LL Cool J was known more as a Hollywood star than a rapper at the time, he connected with DJ Kay Slay to release his first (and, to date, only) mixtape, The Return Of The G.O.A.T.

The Return Of The G.O.A.T.’s mission was twofold: in addition to advertising his upcoming Exit 13, his twelfth full-length album and thirteenth project overall when one counts his greatest hits project All World, LL also wanted to show the kids that he was still “with it”, even though they changed what “it” was and now what he was “with” wasn’t “it” anymore and what’s “it” seems weird and scary. (It’ll happen to you!) With Kay Slay’s mixtape expertise, Cool James set about throwing together a combination of original songs, freestyles over other artists’ beats, at least one alternate version of a track he’d release later, and a few freestyles from different rappers over some of his own classic instrumentals. This being a mixtape, after all, there are also a couple of tracks that seemingly have nothing to do with LL Cool J: hell, even those Re-Up Gang tapes had some tracks that didn’t feature Pusha or Malice.

The Return Of The G.O.A.T. finds a game LL Cool J willing to play ball with our chosen genre, talking his shit in a much more aggressive manner than he’d ever be able to convincingly pull off on an actual album in 2008. With Kay Slay, LL found a business partner who understood the endgame, so even though it didn’t really do a whole lot to advertise Exit 13 (even though our host does mention that project often, like any good mascot), I dare say it threw him a lifeline, proving to older hip hop heads that the dude who once brutally attacked the likes of Kool Moe Dee and Canibus on wax was still around, it’s just that his anger had been tempered by the zeroes Hollywood had direct-deposited into his bank account.

I know you two were hoping that I would have finally gotten to 14 Shots To The Dome in my reverse chronological catalog review. Well, unless the man releases another album between now and whenever the fuck it is that I get back to him, that should be next in line. Until then, enjoy this look at mixtape LL, a guy who appeared only once, but quickly ran back to his day job.

1. INTRO

I mean…

2. HI HATERZ

LL Cool James launches into an extra-lengthy verse over the Mista Raja instrumental to Maino’s “Hi Hater”, one that is so long that it exposes the weakness that the beat suffers from: yes, that really is all there is to it, and it gets old really fucking quickly. Our host doesn’t so much spit as he does rap amiably about how great he is and whatnot, but at times he still sounds pretty damn convincing, and he’s kind of earned the right to coast by now, although I must be clear when I say he is actually trying to entertain on here. His flow adapts to the beat decently enough, but I only remembered one bar from this mixtape freestyle, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anybody or anything. (Oh, that bar? At one point LL says, “I helped build a hip hop nation”, which I found hilarious, not because he’s wrong (he isn’t), but Hip Hop Nation is a channel on Sirius XM, and within the past year LL launched a companion he calls Rock The Bells Radio, which focuses on the old school. Hey, I didn’t say you’d find the bar fascinating.)

3. WHO WANT IT WITH THE G.O.A.T.

Not sure if it’s just my copy or what, but the J.R. Rotem “The Boss” instrumental borrowed from Rick Ross for “Who Want It With The G.O.A.T.” I just heard sounds unmastered, and the drums were mixed in rather low. I’ll just chalk it up to the catch-all descriptor “mixtape quality”. Anywho, Ladies Love sounds awkward here, but it works to his benefit, as being outside of his comfort zone forces our host to acclimate to the water much faster, and through never truly feeling comfortable, LL sounds hungrier than usual. I’m certainly not trying to say that our host is saying something important on here, but I’m also not not saying that.

4. ZODIAC DRILLA

While the previous two songs amounted to playful freestyle beat-jacking, “Zodiac Drilla”, a title which makes zero sense once you listen to the track, is a painful experience. Over Bangladesh’s beat for Lil Wayne’s “A Milli”, Cool James embarrasses himself by trying to spit as confidently and smarmily as Weezy, up to and including using Auto-Tune to tweak his vocals throughout. That’s not a joke, that’s a warning. “Zodiac Drilla” was pretty terrible, folks. Lyrically, our host’s shit-talking leads nowhere, although he does make one of the first references of the evening to his obsession with “laptop gangsters”, which he believes is a clever way to refer to bloggers, basically, so I found that amusing but only while holding my head in my hands and wincing at the track’s every other moment. It’s shit like this that make the kids believe that the older cats in the game have no business still being here.

5. 5 BOROUGHS (UNRELEASED VERSION) (FEAT. JIM JONES, METHOD MAN, KRS-ONE, & UNCLE MURDA)

DJ Kay Slay finally unleashes an LL Cool J original with “5 Boroughs”, although this production, while utilizing the same Suits and Ray Burghardt beat, is a reorganized take on a song you two may already be familiar with, at least if you own the iTunes version of Exit 13, the album The Return Of The G.O.A.T. was ostensibly released to promote. The album take puts LL in final position, not unlike “4,3,2,1” and “I Shot Ya (Remix)”, as he uses his dominance to crush naïve confidence, but on this mixtape our host is front and center, spitting his overlong hook (naming all five boroughs of New York City is cool, but as that wouldn’t fit in a traditional four-bar hook, it sounds overlong and unnecessary here) and his verse as though they were one lengthy stanza. Instead of giving his guests room to breathe, all four of them are forced to share a single verse (unlike the album version, where they were broken up into sections), and nobody says anything interesting outside of the pro-New York propaganda this song (and guest KRS One’s own previous “5 Boroughs”, from the soundtrack to The Corruptor and featuring different NY representatives) pushes… until you hear Brooklyn’s own Uncle Murda shout about how excited he is to be on an LL Cool J song, which just made my heart hurt when I remembered how he was replaced with the more marketable Lil Kim for the album. Sigh. The beat is okay, but it grows more frustrating as the track goes on. But this still wasn’t bad, and it will appeal to those of you who love exploring alternate universes, I suppose.

6. FREESTYLE (FEAT. SHEEK LOUCH)

Cool James doesn’t appear on this freestyle, but Sheek Louch (of The Lox) does, spitting his little heart out over LL’s “4,3,2,1”, so this does still fit the overall theme of the project. Sheek pays homage to the self-professed G.O.A.T. with a quickie verse that doesn’t connect any dots and barely says anything, so while I usually like the man and feel like he’s a decent rapper who has the misfortune of sharing the spotlight with Jadakiss and Styles P., two dudes who are just leagues ahead of him performance-wise, this freestyle won’t prove me correct to anyone. Flies by too quickly to even really complain, though.

7. LAPTOP GANGSTAZ

A curiosity piece that, at least according to our host during the intro, was intended to be a preview for Exit 13, or even possibly a track on said album, although there’s no way that would have flown: over a boring instrumental that sounds familiar enough but I can’t place it, Cool James boasts a more aggressive technique as he rails against the titular “Laptop Gangstaz”, calling them “retards” and likening them to pedophiles who have child pornography open on their other tabs. Yikes. Yeah, he went a little too far on this shit, and not even Def Jam Records could have protected him from the backlash. Aside from those bouts of stupidity aimed at online critics, it was nice to hear him on a more battle-ready tip, and his boasts about his wealth were pretty funny and realistic, as he talks about having saved all of his FUBU money. But still, this was weird.

8. YOU LIVE AND YOU LEARN (FEAT. PAPOOSE)

Our host has nothing to do with this one, either, save for the instrumental for his song “Ill Bomb” being swiped by New York stalwart and alphabet fanatic Papoose for not just a freestyle, but a full-on song with a hook and all that jazz. Mr. Remy Ma delivers some well-intentioned street shit that is burdened by the visual of him “spitting [his] sperm”, as he mentions during the chorus, which is just a strange way to put it, but whatever. He sounds fine otherwise, but I don’t understand why this is an entire song and not just another homage like Sheek’s from before. Ever the overachiever, that Papoose.

9. I CRY (FEAT. LIL MO)

The actual first single from Exit 13, although it’s titled simply “Cry” on the album, perhaps to avoid confusion with the Ja Rule song “I Cry”, which, coincidentally, also features guest crooner Lil Mo, who apparently loves to use every part of the buffalo when it comes to her writing. As a song, it plays very much as a first single from an LL Cool J project, as our host maneuvers around the Raw Uncut instrumental in order to catch the ears of the radio audience who know him from shit like this and not, oh, let’s just say “Radio”. It technically isn’t a bad song insomuch as it’s merely competent, if not “entertaining” or “enjoyable to listen to” or even “establishing its own need to exist”. Lil Mo’s star may have begun to fade just after this song was released, but she isn’t at fault here: it’s just that the whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts.

10. NEW YORK GANGSTAZ

Even though our host delivers a dismissive “motherfuck them all” aimed at his detractors, “New York Gangstaz” isn’t about him or his one-sided battle with critics: rather, LL Cool J uses the track to talk about various gangster types that had floated in and out of his life when he was younger, a topic of discussion one doesn’t really ever hear from the man. It’s weird to hear Ladies Love dropping (nick)names while discussing various crimes and misdemeanors he was a witness or a party to, but since “New York Gangstaz:” failed to appear on any proper album, it isn’t like anyone ever heard this shit, so he’s probably safe from a 50 Cent “Ghetto Qu’ran” situation. He relays these stories very well, but the instrumental is a complete mismatch for the material. Sigh.

11. SIDEWALK EXECUTIVES

That phone number LL reads off during the intro? It’s real, or at least it was at one point, and it’s tied to Tybo Productions, a company co-founded by producer Ty Fyffe. That’s kind of funny to me. The rest of this track, which has a cool-enough title but a bland instrumental to work around, is a quick burst of air puffed into your eyes during an exam at your optometrist’s office: it serves a purpose and is mildly unpleasant, but not so much that you’d ever give it a second thought. Your time may be better spent calling the number to see if Ty Fyffe will actually pick up in 2018.

12. FREESTYLE (FEAT. GRAFH)

Another artist steps up to the plate to pay their respects to Uncle L, this time Queens rapper Grafh, who borrows the Trackmasters instrumental from our host’s “I Shot Ya” and convinces me that I need to listen to both our host’s original and the star-studded remix again just to wash this boredom-in-song-form out of my brain. Grafh may have been elated to perform for LL and Kay Slay, but none of that comes through in his performance. Skip this one and go to the source, folks. Semi-related: Fat Joe’s line from the “I Shot Ya” remix, “I’d rather be feared than loved because the fear lasts longer” pops up in my mind far more often than it should, but you have to admit, that’s a cold-ass line.

13. THE TRUTH (“THROWBACK”)

Cool James reflects on his past career and how he still can’t believe he’s at the level he is now. He refers to himself as a “movie star”, so this was obviously recorded before he realized his niche was military police procedurals and hoisting variety programs and award ceremonies, but that’s a pedantic complaint. LL sounds pretty good on “The Truth (“Throwback”)”, which may not be as inspiring as he would have hoped, but it’s a good, easy listen regardless. He tries a bit too hard with the multiple Spanish bars toward the end, but hey, good on him for trying something different.

14. FREESTYLE (FEAT. NICOLETTE)

Aside from the fact that female rapper Nicolette, of whom not a whole lot is known, was apparently one of our host’s artists at the time, this freestyle is only track on The Return Of The G.O.A.T. that has almost fuck-all to do with LL Cool J. Nicolette uses the showcase Kay Slay gives her to… spit over the Young Jeezy “Put On” instrumental, all of which was recorded while Cool James had stepped out to get a gyro from a food truck outside, I assume? Nicolette does say LL’s (nick)name at the very end, when she’s completed her verse, but it’s far too late: not only does this freestyle have nothing to do with the proceedings and, as such, sticks out like a sore thumb in a bag of limes, Nicolette doesn’t even sound all that convincing with her Auto-Tuned bars. She could always improve if she spends time on her craft, but her appearance on here was unnecessary and irrelevant.

15. CLAP N REVOLVE

A rather misguided effort from Ladies Love to appeal to the streets, as our host delivers empty threats and surprisingly (for 2008, anyway) homophobic comments over an instrumental that sounds like something Rick Ross would have given to Meek Mill just to shut him up. This is all before he teases the return of LL Cool J the battle rapper, even though there isn’t anyone in the game he seems to have any beef with at the moment. Maybe he wanted to dis his NCIS: Los Angeles co-star Chris O’Donnell in song form and was just looking for the proper vehicle? “Clap N Revolve” is perfect mixtape fodder, in that it wasn’t good enough to make the cut of any proper album and is completely forgettable in its current format, but isn’t something you’d go out of your way to turn off or skip. Unless, or course, my mention of the song’s “homophobic comments” is a dealbreaker, in which case I couldn’t blame you one bit.

16. PAPER (FEAT. JIZ & LYRIKAL)

Cool James was too cool to give a shit about “Paper”, a track he takes no part in presenting until it’s finished, when he squanders the rest of the audio track talking about himself and never acknowledging the music that just played. Yeah, Kay Slay snuck another unrelated effort onto this mixtape. Lyrikal and the unfortunately-named Jiz are two rappers who we’ll likely never hear from again, although at least one of them (I can’t be bothered to look up who) sounded excited during the intro, if not through his hook and verse. The instrumental was kind of catchy. But if that’s the best these guys can come up with, welp.

17. ROCK DA POLE

I didn’t honestly believe LL was going to go the entire mixtape without giving listeners a track for the ladies, and I was correct, as always. However, “Rock Da Pole” isn’t so much a love rap as a trashy sex song with a heavy emphasis on strippers, as per the title. It’s bland and indifferent, save for all the sex stuff, I suppose. Huge missed opportunity for Cool James to speak the phrase, “don’t tip the pole over” during his hook, which absolutely consists of the sing’s title ad nauseum. Ah well.

18. OUTRO

I mean…

SHOULD YOU TRACK THIS DOWN? Um… no? It kind of depends, really. I found the majority of The Return Of The G.O.A.T. to be a reach, as LL Cool J appears to be playing the role of a mixtape rapper with nothing to lose, knowing all too well that once he leaves the studio, he gets to go back to his everyday life of being a rich dude who CBS keeps inviting back to host the Grammy telecast. And while some of his bars are effective and catchy, for the most part I couldn’t help but think that his cosplaying as a hungry mixtape rapper was somehow disrespectful to folks who actually did this back in 2008 in order to stir up enough interest to hopefully land a record deal. LL is slumming it here, folks. So no, as a mixtape project this doesn’t altogether work. As an homage to LL Cool J, it fares a bit better, especially if you lump Kay Slay in with Sheek, Grafh, and Papoose as being an artist who is paying his respects to our host by trying to compile a collection of tracks that reminds him of the aggressive Cool James he grew up with. Some of the song selections are puzzling, and the inclusion of tracks that have nothing to do with LL disrupts the flow of a project you’re not likely to track down anyway, especially after these loving words of praise. As a rapper, LL Cool J still has it in him to rip the microphone whenever he wants to: ironically, he sounds even more hungry in 2018 now that he has to re-prove his worth to the audience every time he steps to the plate. But ten years ago he was coasting, and this mixtape is the proof.

-Max

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