LL Cool J is ready to reclaim his throne on the music charts with a new single, “SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL,” and an album. The Queens, New York, rapper teased the upcoming music on social media, where he revealed the song’s release date is set for Friday, June 14.
His album, whose name has not yet been revealed, will come later this fall. It will mark his first full-length project since Authentic, which came out in 2013. “It’s the real deal, baby. It’s go time. ‘SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL’ is the first single. I’ll let you know about the features [in a] couple of days… Track listing for the album is coming… It’s on, baby, you know what I’m sayin’. New LL, you know what it is, you know exactly what it is,” said the “Headsprung” emcee in a self-recorded video from inside a recording booth.
The entertainer dusted off the mic last year when he helped celebrate Hip Hop’s 50th anniversary with performances at the Grammy Awards in February and again when the Recording Academy presented their “A Grammy Salute to 50 Years of Hip Hop” special. It seems as though anticipation for LL’s full-fledged return to music has been building ever since.
On the heels of rocking the stage with a medley of his classic cuts to honor the genre that catapulted him to stardom, he embarked on “The F.O.R.C.E. Live Tour” with celebrated acts like Queen Latifah, Rakim, Method Man, Rodman, Jadakiss, Big Boi and Rick Ross, to name a few. The arena tour, his first in 30 years, was appropriately dubbed “the Grammys performance on steroids” by Questlove.
The Hip Hop pioneer who made his mark rocking gold rope chains and Kangol hats in the late 80s initially hoped to drop an album sometime in 2023. In early January, he tweeted, “I’m competing with myself on this new album. Wait ‘til you hear this [motherf**ker].” Though delayed for undisclosed reasons, there is no denying that LL’s only competition is the man in the mirror.
His decades-long career has yielded 28 songs that landed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, eight that landed in the top 10 and “All I Have” featuring Jennifer Lopez, which spent four weeks sitting at No. 1. His discography includes albums such as Radio, Mama Said Knock You Out, Phenomenon and 10.
The multi-platinum record-selling artist’s legacy was cemented when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2021.