LL's second effort broadly reflects the canons of a full-blown sophomore jinx. This too, like many, comes after a classic and is partially affected by that. It's still fresh, but a little less than the previous one. The verdant cover features the author standing on an Audi 5000 in front of the gates of a school in Queens.
The production passes from the hands of Rick Rubin to those of The LA Posse, which offers a soundscape more accessible even to listeners outside the LL core base: the beatmaker rounds skinny and hard vibes providing a more rhythmic, slow ("Bristol Hotel") or rapid sounds ("Kanday"), simple rockin' ("Get Down", "Go Cut Creator Go") and also leaving the simple drum machine in evidence ("My Rhyme Ain't Done", "The Breakthrough"), all musical carpets on which the rapper can go wild and offer hardcore bars.
His hardcore delivery style is always smooth: LL Cool J is at the best when he deepens his storytelling ("The Bristol Hotel") or when he launches attacks on rivals (MC Shan is targeted in "The Breaktrhough"). Aided by simple and functional hooks and by rhythms that continue to vary up to the funky of the festive "Ahh, Let's Get Ill" and the funky skeletal of the subsequent "The Do Wop", which presents a male soul sample looped in the background quite lame in a cut on which the MC doesn't seem lyrically inspired, LL builds a pretty solid album with excellent commercial success. It deserves a mention "I Need Love", ballad with delivery sung by the rapper: although the song isn't an authentic banger, it soon becomes the track that marks the way to make a rap ballad, heavily influencing the subsequent songs of the genre.
There are many value cuts, "I'm Bad" annihilates every other track by confirming itself as the LP banger and one of the best battle rap record of the period with his punchlines: skinny, tense, hard and dark rhythm, smooth hardcore delivery provided by the emcee and functional hook with bridge boasting police sirens circulating, they are coming.
Supported by the notable mainstream success of the singles "I'm Bad" and "I Need Love", respectively fourth and first in the Hot Black Singles chart, the effort peaks third in the Billboard 200 and arrives at the top of rnb chart, achieving encouraging results in the UK, Europe, Canada and New Zealand, becoming one of the best-selling albums in the season in US and being certified double platinum at home six months after the release, and gold in Canada in 1988. The album is well received by critics, although they more or less all agree that the attempt fails to match the high quality of the debut.
Rating: 7.5/10.
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