For nearly five decades, LL Cool J — the two-time Grammy Award-winning, 2021 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, and original hip-hop G.O.A.T. — has maintained an expansive legacy as big as the genre itself. And for the first time in 30 years, he’s hitting the road with The F.O.R.C.E. Live tour (Frequencies of Real Creative Energy), which arrives at the United Center Sunday.
For LL, this would also be his first show at the United Center, revealing during a recent chat that he’s never performed under the Bulls and Blackhawks championship banners.
“I’ve been doing other things other than go on the road, and when I did do shows, I was either doing amphitheaters or I would come and do smaller shows. I would do a few nights at the House of Blues. I didn’t do any arena shows out there for many, many years, and I decided it was time. So this is going to be the first time in many, many years,” said LL.
For The F.O.R.C.E. tour, honoring hip-hop’s 50th anniversary (and a forthcoming new album), LL says he’s delivering “nonstop hip-hop all night” as the format will be unlike any other show he’s ever done.
“And the thing that’s exciting about it is that most of the time when I would come to a town, there’s going to be an artist on stage, they’ll perform, and there’s a set change. We’re not doing that with this one. I’m coming and it’s going to be the Roots band, DJ Z-Trip and DJ Jazzy Jeff behind me and all the other acts, and we’re going to be performing like one big supergroup. We’re going to be rocking all night. It’s going to be closer to what we did on the Grammys, but on a whole ’nother level,” said LL.
Along with the legendary pioneers he’s bringing with him to Chicago — including Rakim, Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick — the tour is also bringing rap legends from across the South, Midwest and West Coast, with Chicago playing host for hometown hero Common and Grammy Award winners Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, the first and biggest rap group to come out of Cleveland.
“I’m not going to come out to the Midwest and come out to Chicago and not have nobody represent. I had to have Common. And on the Midwest side, having Bone Thugs is a beautiful thing, too. I love hip-hop from all over the country. Common has put a lot of work in, Bone Thugs has put a lot of work in, and they deserve to be elevated and honored and play at this level in those towns.”
During his prime in the ’90s and 2000s, LL watched both Bone Thugs and Common rise from two entirely different Midwest cultures and carve out their respective legacies through their originality, top-tier songwriting and creative approaches that were uniquely different from their East and West Coast counterparts at the time.
“I always thought Bone Thugs was super creative. Their presentation was so unique and absolutely amazing as a group. With Common, I thought he was a hell of a songwriter, and I just thought he had a way of bringing a certain level of confidence and creativity to all his music,” said LL.
LL, real name Todd Smith, was a young and volatile teenager akin to his distant successor Chief Keef in the mid-’80s. Like so many Black teenagers, he hungered to be seen and recognized as a whole person, and to never be forgotten, as he watched what happened to many of his peers from his native Queens borough in New York City. It’s what fueled his motivation to become one of the best MCs of his era.
“I was doing it out of the love. ... I was just so hungry and I didn’t want to be invisible. In my neighborhood where we grew up at, people were invisible. There was someone on the corner, [then] you never hear from the guy ever again, and it was over. And it felt like nobody cared about them. So for me, it was a way to feel powerful, a way to feel important, a way to feel like I mattered to somebody. That’s where the spirit of that was from,” he said.
Fixated on that desire, he consequently did not pay as much attention to the business of music as he does now. However, he says it all worked out because he was passionate about the quality of his music, which he recommends the new generation Chicago rappers to put first.
“What I would tell them is to pay attention to the business, but don’t pay attention to it so much that it’s a detriment to your art. Because if you do the art right, you’ll have an opportunity to do the business right. And if you do the business right, but get the art wrong, it won’t matter if the business is right. So you have to find that balance,” LL said. “Approach with humility, know your value, and trust your worth and don’t be a follower. If you’re not great at what you do, then the business won’t matter. You have to be strong enough to handle the pressures of life and still pursue your career. That’s why everybody can’t do it.”
