LL Cool J's love jones - rapper/actor keeps love as theme of music

After a decade in hip-hop, the recently married rapper--actor LL Cool J has learned that home with Simone is where the heart is

LL Cool J is on a soundstage at Los Angeles' Sunset-Gower Studio trying to keep Kim Wayans from jumping his bones. The lean, angular Wayans has LL (aka James Todd Smith) pinned to a massage table in a faux-weight-room set of NBC's In the House. Wayans, playing a workout instructor, has the hots for the ex-football player LL portrays, but the rapper, displaying deft comic timing, slips away from his pursuer. Meanwhile, costar Debbie Allen and producer Winifred Hervey and other members of the In the House team watching the run-through are laughing at the comic chemistry of Wayans and LL.

On Mr. Smith, LL's latest album, there's a cut called "Hollis to Hollywood" that he says was written before he joined the sitcom. Whether it was prophecy or luck, LL certainly knew what he was talking about. After a successful six-show run last spring, In the House was picked up for the fall 95 season. With its solid ratings, the show is poised to replace Will Smith's The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as prime time's top hip-hop sitcom. However, LL's segue from headlining stadia to bum-rushing the Nielsen ratings is just one manifestation of the many profound changes this 28-year-old has undergone recently.

Last summer the rapper-turned-actor married his longtime sweetheart, Simone, a soft-spoken honey-colored homegirl from his native Queens. Last September they also celebrated the birth of Samaria, their third child, having previously shared in the creation of Najee, 6, and Italia, 4. Though his rap name stands for "Ladies Love Cool James," LL focuses his affection on building a stable family environment. While he's still extremely confident, the early "I'm so bad" braggadocio that put him on the map a decade ago seems tempered by the responsibilities of fatherhood.

LL and I go back. Actually I did liner notes on his first album, Radio. I still remember him as an energetic teenager who could be quiet yet arrogant. LL could give you a blank stare suggesting that what you'd just said was stupid. Yet listening to his lyrics you realized that a smart, sensitive young man resided beneath the bravado. Russell Simmons, president and cofounder of Def Jam Records, who has known and worked with his fellow Queens native since LL was 15, remarks: "He has grown so much. Now he speaks with the same eloquence he rhymes with. Unlike a lot of artists, he has managed to become mature and stable while growing up in public."

Later that afternoon, LL sits on the sofa in his dressing room wearing hip-hop basics (baseball cap, sneakers, T-shirt). Verbally, however, he's coming from a very domesticated place. "The whole reality is that a real man--an independent, strong man--takes care of his family," he observes with quiet authority. "He's gonna love his wife; he's gonna love his children. He's gonna be tender with them. The reality is when he's loving his wife and hugging his children, he's expressing his emotions."

Looking at the hip-hop generation in broader terms, LL asserts, "See, this generation of African-Americans, for the most part, come from broken homes. The majority of us are raised by our mothers and grandmothers, so we don't see men loving their kids. We never get an opportunity to see the soft sides of a man. Hip-hop perpetuates the harder image. The softer side is something you've gotta learn."

LL has long been the reigning champion of hip-hop romance. Radio, which debuted in 1985, contained two love songs (although the hard-core classic "Rock the Bells" was the hit). His 1987 hit "I Need Love" was a Top Ten pop single, and the best two tracks on his new release, his first single "Hey Lover" (featuring Boyz 11 Men) and "Doin' It," are about love and sensuality. But why is LL rapping about love in this era of sex- and gun-obsessed hip-hop?

Part of it, he argues, has to do with artistry. "A true artist allows his creative spirit to be unleashed--anything else is fake," he explains. "There are a lot of rappers out there who have nice beats. There are other [rap] artists who use the beats as a canvas and allow listeners to go places they've never been. When I close my eyes and look inside, something makes me want to write love songs, because I can't deny the passion and heat and fire inside me."

"There's a lot of hypermasculinity in rap music," he continues. "But half of those rappers just need a hug and a father in their lives."

LL himself is the product of a broken home. He was raised largely by his grandparents in the middle-class community of St. Albans, Queens. In recent years, his father, Jimmy Nunya, has come back into his life and, for a time, served as his manager. Today Charles Fisher handles LL's business.

LL gets a little tight-lipped when discussing the business break with his father. But ask him who was his childhood mentor, and his mood lifts and his cadence becomes slower, almost reverent. "The male role model who shaped my personality was my grandfather on my mother's side," he says. "He showed me what hard work means. He also taught me what a true hero is. A hero is a man who goes out there and does what he has to do to provide for his family."

His late grandfather, a postal worker by day, used to play jazz records and tunes on his saxophone for his grandson at night. "He opened the door of music to me," LL recalls with deep emotion. "Seeing someone I idolized love music so much made me love it, too."

Though his mother had custody of him after the breakup of his parents, LL spent a lot of time with the female members of his extended family. He makes special mention of his grandmother and his aunt on his mother's side as being crucial to his development. Both were interested in education and had encouraged him to read. In fact, he credits them for the verbal skills that have made him one of hip-hop's most articulate and enduring lyricist. "To this day," he says, "if you come to my house, you'll see books around, Books on anything from Jewish philosophy to The Art of War. That's another love that's been passed down to me."

One thing that's very clear about this love child is that LL takes fatherhood very seriously. He hopes, as much as is humanly possible, to keep his kids away from the glare of his celebrity. About his son, his eldest child, Najee, he notes: "I didn't make him a junior, because I want him to exist on this planet as his own being and not be burdened by sharing my name. He'll have a totally different upbringing from mine."

Being the role model for two girls will present a different challenge, one LL has already given a lot of thought to. He adds with a note of resignation, "When you raise a daughter you know that one day a man's gonna want her. I'll have to love mine and teach them to respect themselves. The main thing I'll stress to them is, `Don't let any man dictate how much you value yourself.' I'll tell them to value themselves whether he's there or not. As long as they remember that, I'll have nothing to worry about."

I first met Simone, Najee and Italia at a TY taping LL did in Orlando last summer. They were all dressed in warm-up suits and sneakers. LL and Simone seemed to share the intimacy of a couple who've been there and back. Though married less than a year, LL and Simone have had an off-and-on romance for ten years. For a young couple in the nineties, that's an eternity.

Initially LL didn't volunteer much information about his relationship with Simone. When asked how they met, he replied, "I knew her right around my way, in Queens, when I was 16. It's that simple. The reality is that she and I can look at each other and say `We come from the same place.' When I talk about Queens, she can visualize where I'm talking about. We grew up with the same culture. And that's important. See, a lot of people get money, then they go off and they forget what life's all about. I wouldn't really be living a true life if I lived that way. With Simone I'm living a true life."

When he's taping the show, he and Simone and the kids live in L.A. Their main "keep it real" residence, however, is back in Queens, not far from where he grew up. After years of celebrity, travel and gossip columns about his former romance with Quincy Jones's daughter, Kidada, LL has slid comfortably into a bicoastal pattern of public work and private life. "Now," he says earnestly, "if I've got a flight to catch and I won't have time to kiss my kids goodbye, I'll just miss that plane. That's how I'm living."

After our talk, we wait in the parking lot under a fading Los Angeles sky for Simone to pick us up. Dressed in expensive shades and a bright scarlet hockey jersey, LL attracts a lot of attention. Female employees say hi shyly. A few male dancers coming from a rehearsal with Debbie Allen ask LL if he'd like to come rehearse with them. A seventies sitcom star stops his car to congratulate LL on his work.

To all of it LL, a star for a decade, just smiles regally. He has high hopes for his new album and wants to secure feature film roles. About his future, he says, "I want to expand myself. I want to be well-read and well-versed. I want to experience as many things as possible. I want to enjoy those experiences with people who speak my language. For me, language isn't only phonetics; it's understanding someone's experience. That's true communication."

But right now, as he impatiently looks at his watch and glances at the creeping darkness, he's not philosophizing at all. In fact, he seems just like your average brother who can't wait for his wife to show up with the ride. And if that's not grown-up, what is?

Nelson George is the author of the forthcoming music-business novel Seduced (Putnam Books).

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