The Arrival Of LL Cool J” In The Def Jam Recordings Book

GQ managed to get an exclusive excerpt from the upcoming book, Def Jam Recordings: The First 25 Years Of The Last Great Record Label – and it touches down on one of the first and most monumental signings to the Def Jam label, LL Cool J. They describe first meeting LL and hearing his song “I Need A Beat”.

T La Rock: I first met LL Cool J when I did a show with Kurtis Blow and someone else at the Encore in Queens. Here comes this light-skinned guy with a hat on, running up to me. “T La Rock! T La Rock! I’m so glad to meet you. You gotta hear me. I sound just like you.” To be honest with you, I liked “I Need a Beat.” But at the same time I was thinking, “Wow, Rick did it. He found him another T La Rock.”

Bill Stephney (producer): I thought “I Need a Beat” was a Run solo record at first. LL sounded like Run, and musically it was just so much in keeping with the minimalism of “Sucker M.C.’s”—beat and voice, beat and voice. But such energy! It was bursting!

Alonzo “Mr. Hyde” Brown: Every time he came into the room, he was just this ball of energy, like, something had to happen for him. I remember Andre [Harrell] and I were riding in a car across the Queensboro Bridge to Silver Lake Studios to shoot Krush Groove. LL’s in the back. He was like, “Can I come with y’all?”

“All right. Fine.”