Every day brings a new story. And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books.
Today is a story of January 14th.
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It is the 14th day of the year, leaving 351 days remaining in 2022.
He tells his stories with a beat -- creating those beats with a couple of turntables to sample records, an audio mixer, and an ever-present drum machine. The beat is needed to accompany his rapping -- hard and fast, with agile rhymes and pleasingly arrogant phrases.
Indeed, the first record he sold was titled I Need a Beat; it sold more than 100,000 copies and helped launch his professional career.
Indeed, LL Cool J has a number of firsts in the rap/hip-hop genre: He was one of the first artists signed by Def Jam, the pioneering records company; his first album, Radio, was an original rap Top 10 seller; he is the first rap artist to be on American Bandstand, and the first such artist awarded a Kennedy Center honor.
He has had mainstream success and a longevity that many of his contemporaries lacked. Radio -- considered among his best work -- was released in 1985. Two years later, he released Bigger and Deffer, which was critically acclaimed and outsold Radio.
His versatility allowed him to begin acting, with TV roles in In the House and NCIS: Los Angeles, as well as film roles in Edison and Any Given Sunday.
He is a two-time Grammy Award winner and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.
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