James "LL Cool J" Smith was born in Bay Shore, on Long Island, New York, and raised in Queens. Passionate about hip-hop, he approaches rapping thanks to the Harlem hip-hop group The Treacherous Three, and was helped in his youth in his musical passion by his grandfather and mother, later his father also became closer to him. Using instruments received from his relatives, the boy creates his own demos and sends them to the city's record labels. Smith changes his moniker from J-Ski to LL Cool J (acronym to Ladies Love Cool James) and signed with independent Def Jam, label founded by the young Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons: at the age of 17, he's the first artist to sign with the label.
In 1984, the kid release his first single, "I Need a Beat": composed of skeletal music and tight rapping, the single made its way and became extremely popular, selling 100,000 physical copies, convincing LL Cool J to continue his path as a young and talented emerging rapper and strengthening the status of Def Jam. The young artist leaves school to record his debut studio album, which also coincides with the first for the label, and participates in the hip-hop movie "Krush Groove" (1985).
From a musical point of view, the record presents a minimalist production par excellence, skeletal and very aggressive, provided by Rick Rubin with scratching and few samples to support the powerful and rough rap executed by the rapper. The lyricism covers several themes and is focused around the lifestyles of youth, braggadocious and cheerful verses, delivered with a confident, boldly, hardcore style of rapping, full of charisma. Even the two ballads ("I Can Give You More" and "I Want You") don't sound like ballads.
Released at the end of the year 1985 by Def Jam and distributed by Columbia, "Radio" sells half a million of physical copies in five months, an absolutely exorbitant and astonishing result for a rap album of the time. It reach the box number #46 in the Billboard 200, sixth among the rnb albums. In April 1988, is certified platinum by RIAA, and allows a wider commercial opening for the hip-hop genre. Critics of different musical genres join in praising the project. Thanks to the success of the record and of the single "I Need a Beat", LL Cool J becomes one of the first hip-hop artists to attract the attention of the mainstream public, along with Run-DMC and Kurtis Blow. Few months later, the rapper joins the Raising Hell tour, opening for Run-DMC and Beastie Boys. He's also the first hip-hop artist to participate to American Bandstand.
The disk is considered by critics as part of a trinity of albums produced by Rick Rubin, with "Raising Hell" (1986, Run-DMC) and "Licensed to Ill" (1986, Beastie Boys), from artists of New York City and that become some of the most important and top products in the hip-hop scene of the eighties, helping to cement Rick Rubin as one of the best hip-hop producers on the circuit and giving a precise form to the music that he proposes in these records, and which will inevitably influence the hip-hop production of all other artists in the following years. The effort, that reflects the new school and ghetto blaster culture son of Run-DMC influence, is hailed as a hip-hop classic album, one of the greatest of the eighties and the inaugural one of the so-called golden age of hip-hop, effectively putting an end to old school and disco rap, both represented by Sugar Hill Records, which would go bankrupt within a few years after being one of the many labels contacted by LL to reject his demo.
Highlights: "I Can't Live Without My Radio", "I Can Give You More", "Rock the Bells".
Rating: 8.6/10.
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