Nearly 30 years after the release of “Rock The Bells,” LL Cool J breaks down the track for Complex’ TV’s latest installment of the “Magnum Opus.”
“By the time Rick Rubin’s unforgettably rough and raw beat kicks in on the song, LL Cool J takes you on a furious lyrical tirade in a way the world had never really heard before,” Complex reports. “Although LL had already put out a handful of records prior to ‘Rock The Bells,’ this is the song that really proved the self-proclaimed GOAT rapper was a phenomenon. ‘Rock The Bells’ isn’t just one of LL’s best songs, it’s one of the best rap songs ever.”
The song is the third single from LL’s first album, Radio. The Rick Rubin-produced tracked became one of Def Jam’s early hits.
“The inner cities can be like quicksand unless you are blessed with an innate ability and instinctive sense of how to get out of there,” LL Cool J says in the video. “It becomes cyclical. Rap represented an opportunity to make more of my life. The day I fell in love with Hip Hop, I was actually in junior high school and there was this one kid walking ahead of me in the hall and he was kind of diddy-boppin and singin, ‘This deejay…’ and it just hit me, like ‘That’s what I want to do.'”
The 16-minute videos details the impact the song had on the streets, as well as the process behind the jam.
“Young people prior to that moment couldn’t have had that ambition” Def Jam publicist Bill Adler says in the video. “There was no rap on record. So he’s essentially born into Hip Hop…someone who’s known what he wants to do since he was at least 11 years old.”
A previous installment of Complex’s “Magnum Opus” detailed the collaborative process between 50Cent and Eminem in the song “Patiently Waiting.”
In December LL Cool J said that his upcoming project G.O.A.T. 2 will feature Eminem, T.I. and Fred The Godson.
After hosting the Grammy Awards, LL Cool J says that he has no timetable for the release of his upcoming album.
“I’m working on G.O.A.T. 2,” he says. “I’m taking my time with it. I’m having a lot of fun, and I have some really cool people on the record. It’s coming together slowly, so we’ll see. When it’s ready, I’ll put it out.”
hahaha rick rubin is a thief. doesn’t wanna acknowledge that the scratch concept came from marley marl as ll acknowledged in the same video. LOL. fuckin thief.
Scratch concept? The man single handedly took hip-hop production from disco beats into to a new era. I take nothing away from Marely, top ten producer without question. But I’d suggest that Marely MAY have just taken credit for a beat idea / loop from the artists he produced for himself. And that you may OCCASIONALLY have to give a white dude props. Just saying….
Dude above me is dead on with the T LA Rock comment though
Lets just say rick and marley both took hip hop from disco beats to a new era. I mean they both bad the scratch concept, marleys other alias was “marley scratch”, i mean shit it was even the title to shans first song and the hook or punchline in some of the juice crew songs so it’s not like it’s far fetched to credit him as well as rick rubin. Both of those dudes are greats. Also except for I need a beat, none of LL’s other ish even approached T LA Rock’s style. We acknowledged him way back then for influencing that song but that’s it.
these niggaz took t la rock’s rhyming and beat concept mixed with marley marl techniques and put this marketable clown LL on it. no idea’s original. aint nuthin new under the sun.
Clown, I suggest you listen to–I need a beat, I can’t live without my radio, Rock the bells, You’ll rock, Go Cut Creator Go, Dear Yvette,Kanday, The Do Wop and I’m bad, Going back to cali, Break Of dawn,mama said knock you out-and get back to me….Clown? What have you done? T La Rock wishes he had the career that LL has….Still Doing it…Still.
G.O.A.T.-Hip Hop nation, if you have not heard LL’s early music, go check it out. LL was doing this when rap was only a few years old, but he transcended the genre into the stratosphere. When Rock the bells came out, almost every car, jeep, van, radio and walkman was playing it! he set the summer on fire with that song, mainstream hip hop was not the same after that. People had to respect rap at that point. before that, rap was on an hour week on the radio and they mostly played Run DMC’s early work…but when LL came out, rap starting making it’s way to daytime radio ( maybe a couple of spins per day, but better than before).