#2561 - LL Cool J

Man, it’s good to finally sit down with you. I met you at an NBC presentation in the nineties. You were at my table clowning that stiff production, and I thought: this dude is famous but refuses to act impressed with himself.

You got to have manners, Joe, but we’re not curing cancer at those events. I’m an artist first; being known came with the work. I never walked in on some mascot-and-entourage famous-guy shit.

That’s rare when you got your deal at sixteen, right at the beginning of Def Jam, before there was a blueprint.

I was sixteen. We were building Def Jam around records and the streets: Rick Rubin made production happen, Ad-Rock programmed, I got on the mic. But hip-hop grabbed me earlier—Bronx tapes got to Queens and Long Island, and I got baptized in that fire.

You caught a huge moment from the inside, but luck still needs discipline and work.

Right place, blessing, luck—then you work. I started jiu-jitsu with Brian Glick in Brooklyn, and it humbles you fast. A skilled person puts you in closed guard, says, “Get out,” and you do everything except stand up. Martial arts is a deep ocean. It keeps you learning instead of thinking about yourself all day.

I read the same way: history, literature, strategy, Clausewitz. The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know shit. My mother warned me about drugs, but she also said girls don’t like dummies. She meant stay curious.

Intelligence needs willpower. A smart person who folds when life gets ugly is still in trouble.

One bad thought becomes a wildfire if you feed it. Get comfortable with discomfort. If an engine acts up, land the plane when you can; don’t crash because it got hard. Three years from now arrives anyway. If school or a dream matters, go do it. Dreams don’t expire.

Bruce Lee was a hero because he took what worked from everywhere—boxing, kung fu, judo, movement—and was doing cool shit on TV and in movies when almost nobody like him had that space.

Hip-hop hit kids living with chaos like proof that people from their world could sound powerful instead of invisible.

Exactly. When friends can get killed and nobody puts it on the news, you move alert. Then rap made people sound larger than their circumstances. Chains and cars said, “I came from nothing, and now I have something.” That was aspirational. Run-DMC took me worldwide: in Japan, people rapped every lyric without speaking English. Hip-hop had pioneers everywhere, and French hip-hop? Yo, it’s dope.

You took a chance with a love record when people expected you to stay hard.

They wanted to keep it fifty and call it a hundred. Real life has more than one feeling. Don’t hide what’s in you because other people are uncomfortable. Before Rick, I got rejection letters and was ready to quit. My mother used her tax refund for a Korg drum machine, told me I sounded as good as radio, and I made a tape with Frankie. When Rick finally heard it, I was doing handstands on the subway platform.

Rick’s gift is taste. He stripped records down when they were crowded, and he’d say right or not right. I had to learn adjustments. At first I didn’t want “Going Back to Cali”; it sounded different. Then I heard the feeling. I chase feeling, not showing how complicated I can write. A simple line can identify the exact feeling for millions.

That’s mastery: professionals show up. And nerves before a show mean you care.

Use that energy as fuel. Don’t decide at forty or fifty that your dreams are over. Creativity keeps you in the arena. The internet can make life feel scripted, but actual life is on its feet. Ask what you’d do without fear, then live like the documentary about that success starts today.

We got into pyramids, space, time, dimensions, and AI. It’s not hypothetical anymore, and people understandably fear being displaced.

You can’t stand beside Niagara Falls yelling, “Don’t get me wet.” Use AI as a tool; don’t let it flatten you. I don’t want the human spark replaced. And if human bias gets built into training, that can poison the machine.

This was beautiful, man. You came through a brand-new art form, stayed hungry, and still put yourself back at white belt.

Peace and love, baby. Check out NCIS: New York—we’re out in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Village, all over. Jennifer Beals is our boss, Scott Caan is there, and we got a great cast. It’s going to be dope.