LL Cool J opens up about how he’s learning to balance his acting career with his passion for music.
The Grammy-winning rapper got candid in a recent interview with The Independent on feeling conflicted when his acting career took off in the '90s.
“The more successful I was in acting, the less I wanted to do it, because it took me further and further away from music,” he admitted. “Later on I realized I could find the right balance, that I could do all these things I wanted. But it took time.”
While LL Cool J went on to star in dozens of TV shows and films, including Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, In the house, Every damn Sunday and long lasting NCIS: Los AngelesHe also struggled to find time to work on his music, even taking an 11-year musical hiatus after the release of his 2013 album Authentic album.
But now the rapper is back with his latest album, The strengthproduced by Q-Tip. And while it took a long time to make, with some challenges along the way, he ultimately created a body of work that goes deeper and more personal than ever before, where he talks “about new things, not just girls or romance in every track.”
“I wanted to show that you could continue to make great stuff and mature as an artist in hip-hop,” he explained. “Because, to be honest, we're used to artists coming out with mediocre offerings that aren't as impactful or innovative as their first records.”
“I want to show that you can be creative in your 40th year of hip-hop, just like a filmmaker can be creative after 40 years,” LL Cool J continued. “There's no reason why a hip-hop artist can't continue to be innovative, as long as he stays curious, continues to be interested and continues to come up with new ideas.”
Despite being labeled as mainstream, the rapper said he learned that “you just have to be true to yourself” as an artist.
LL Cool J even took inspiration from Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Bob Dylan, “artists who wrote about things that were important to them. I'm not going to be a prisoner of a mainstream image of myself: what ages well is creating what you're meant to create. So I said, 'You know what? I'm just going to write some cool stuff.'”
He added: “I will speak from the heart and let things happen as they have to.”