This is my ninth review of LL Cool J’s catalog that I originally published on Epinions.com two years ago during Hip Hop Appreciation Week.

Roughly 7 years since his last hot album, you wonder what LL had up his sleeve. Even though G. O. A. T. wasn’t a bad release, just inconsistent, I would say that it was probably just short of a fiasco. When you name yourself The Greatest Of All Time the album better be fire. And though there were sparks, like a bad cub scout, he couldn’t turn the spark into wild flames. Would LL get some credibility back with a good album, or would he just throw his hands in the air, and wave them like he just didn’t care? If you’ve heard this album, it’s definitely the latter.

LL fans and hip hop fans alike were hoping that on 10, he would give us glimpses of that 17 year old kid who was intense on the mic and charismatic as all hell. This is not to say that LL is never going to be a dominant force in the game ever again, because given the right producers and frame of mind, there’s no doubt in my mind he can put out respectable records, but I’m ready to say that he simply doesn’t have that fire in his belly anymore. There are records on this album like, Fa Ha and Niggy Nuts which was actually a throwback term, where it seems like he tries to spit hot fiyah (like Dylan), and it just sounds dated and tired. I’ve always been one to give LL props for getting refocused and putting the Kangol back on, but here, it’s just plain weak. And after that, it’s almost as if he just figured he couldn’t do it anymore and decided to make a record straight for the radio. He enlisted the help of The Neptunes for the first single Luv U Better which I’ll admit is a nice ballad and a great single. But you could tell that when that record became successful, he probably figured his vision of the way the album was designed was correct. Paradise is a total R&B record with Amerie. Amerie could’ve added some more singing verses and maybe cut down LL’s lines down and it would’ve been a hit song. But for a hip hop record, it was just soft. If you ever wondered what Sukiyaki would’ve sounded like as a rap song, you have Lolipop which is just lame.

Born To Love You is just too flossy to be good. Done by Nelly, something like this hits as far as the teeny bopper fans, but I doubt those same fans see LL anything other than their old uncle. On any one else’s record You Should would be a nice deviation, but on this album, you wonder who decided what songs would make this album. I can imagine the conversation that was happening when they were selecting the songs.

Let’s see, what do the LL fans want now?
Let’s give them as many love songs as we can.
If this record sells, the next album will be the first slow jams rap album of all time.

If you were a fan of the album Phenomenon, P. Diddy joining LL on the mic for After School probably interested you. The song comes off as a big joke though, as they take lines from Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight for the hook. And if you thought that was hip hop blasphemy, they do it again by stealing Rob Base’s It Takes Two and taking it as their own.

By the time you get to Big Mamma with Dru Hill wailing on the hook, whatever redeeming quality this song could’ve given this album is already lost because of how uninteresting the rest of the album was. But again, while it’s not a love song in his regular terms, it’s still a love song, albeit a heartfelt one. If you’ve followed LL’s career, you know how much of an inspiration she was to him and he gives her the proper shout out.

This is definitely the worst album of LL’s career, and no matter how much he says he’s just as fresh as he ever was, you wonder if he still has anything left. But whether or not you are still a fan, you can’t take anything away from LL’s career as a hip hop icon. Reaching his tenth solo album (he counts his greatest hits album) is a monumental experience.

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