LL COOL J continues to tease that he has a new album on the way that he is really proud of, and hopefully, that we'll all get to listen to it very soon.
Recently, he sat down with Billboard to discuss how he is relaunching the Rock The Bells Festival in Queens. While much of the interview was dedicated to the MC's he is bringing along, The G.O.A.T. did take time to speak on both his past, and future album plans.
On his album '10'
OK. I wasn’t trying hard. I wasn’t really trying. Obviously, I think Pharrell did a great job and he kind of guided me, but my competitive juices as an MC were not burning on those records. So I was making those records more about the sonics of making a song and hearing a record, etc. I didn’t make those records as a B-Boy trying to really stick my territory and put a flag in the ground.
10 was successful. I think it’s platinum or double platinum. It did well, but at the same time, with the people that knock those records and don’t love those records as much, especially the fellas who get on me, they know what I’m capable of. They’ve heard me in moments where I go crazy and they’re like, “Why don’t you do this for?” It’s like a guy who can dunk, who can go to the paint and who can cross people over, shooting jumpers all day long and never going hard. It makes his fans mad. So I know that I have a lot of dudes out there that have been following me for years, defended me in barbershops and on Twitter, and asked, “When are you going to do something for us?” That had a lot to do with me getting with Q-Tip on the new project.
With that said, 10 was a great project, but again, I wasn’t really thinking as much about the culture like I could have. I’ll give you an example. One thing that I did which was real bad was that I went and shot the video for [“Love You Better”]. I was so caught up working out and getting in shape that I didn’t even call up Pharrell for the video. I forgot! How self-centered can you get? Those are moments where it’s like, “Damn. I didn’t even call this dude for the video.” So he’s mad at me. He’s been mad at me for like 1,000 years. He ain’t gon’ tell me that and he’ll bow and forgive me, but I know he’s kind of mad [laughs]. I really apologized to the guy, I was just caught up in my world. Sometimes, we can have blinders on and have that focus, but that focus has to be the right focus. It’s not enough to be focused, it has to be the focused.
