LL Cool J - Mr Smith

LL Cool J - Mr Smith
Commercial hip hop can be a minefield. On the one hand, acts can try too hard to be popular, overdo the melodies and end up saccharine sweet or, on the other hand, acts that are already successful can try too hard to prove that they're 'street' and this thuggishness can come across as fake and inauthentic. This record was pretty popular back in the '90s and is a mixture of the two styles. This isn't a complete disaster because one of the styles is actually done rather well. LL's smooth flow is more suited to sweet and sexy rather than explicit sex and violence.

Make It Hot is soulful, commercial hip hop with a bit of a Will Smith vibe but is better than that sounds. Hip Hop, with its female harmonised chorus, has a SWV vibe. The slinky, Spanish flavoured Hey Lover is like a sweet '90s update of 'I Need Love' and is really good. Doin It is much dirtier but doesn't cross the line and gets away with it due to LL's cheeky charm. Loungin' is back in '90s female R'N'B territory.

LL does some of the harder edged material pretty well. Life As... has a more aggressive gangster edge and LL's vocals have a Flavor Flav feel here ('Cold Lampin' With The Cool J' anyone?). The thugged up I Shot Ya has a Naughty By Nature feel with its sparse piano and beats.

However, not all of the material works as well. Hollis To Hollywood is Warren G style West Coast G Funk but overdoes the explicit imagery. No Airplay goes overboard on the macho posturing with both graphic sex and violence yet cops out by bleeping out the profanities. I fail to see the point.

This has more hits than misses but the good stuff is decent at best which makes this not bad overall.