LL left school and recorded his first album, “Radio” which was “a hugely successful mix of conventional song structure and pop-oriented rap.” according to. The commercial success of “I Need a Beat”, along with the Beastie Boys’ single “Rock Hard”, helped lead Def Jam to establish itself and get a distribution deal with Columbia Records in 1985.
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LL’s and Def Jam’s first single was “I Need A Beat” and it was an underground hit, selling 100,000 records: I got into it when I was about 9, and since then all I wanted was to make a record and hear it on the radio.” He developed a demo tape and aged just 16, signed to Def Jam, a new label set up in 1984 by Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin. It’s like speaking Spanish if you grow up in an all-Spanish house. In this neighborhood, the kids grow up in rap. LL said “By the time I got that equipment, I was already a rapper. His grandfather who was a jazz saxaphonist, bought him $2000 worth of equipment including two turntables, an amplifier and a mixer which helped him get into making music. “Roscoe’s constant beating changed me, I went from this normal kid who got straight A’s and loved school to a troublemaker.” wrote LL in his biography. He frequently abused LL mentally and physically while his mom left home to work. Both survived, and in the hospital his mom met her second husband who was just as abusive. His father shot his mother and grandfather with a 12-gauge shotgun, in front of him, when he was four years old.
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He had a tough childhood because his parents had a violent relationship. He started rapping aged nine, and music provided a way to escape the suffering he endured. LL Cool J – short for “Ladies Love Cool James” – was born in 1968 in Long Island, New York, and grew up in Queens.