LL Cool J’s called his toughest rap opponent a “pain in the ass”
LL Cool J’s career has included a lot of feuds. He has battled many MCs, from Ice-T and MC Hammer, to Kool Moe Dee and MC Shan. However, he once unveiled that the most challenging feud he ever had was with fellow New York lyricist Canibus who he insisted was a “pain in the ass.”
During an appearance on The GAUDS Show podcast hosted by ray Daniels, when asked which of his lyrical wars was the most difficult LL insisted that Canibus was hard for him, expressing, “I would say out of all them, probably Canibus because he was a pain in the ass.”
He admitted that he was more disconnected from hip-hop at that point in time due to acting, so he felt like he had to go hard to prove he could still go toe-to-toe with an emcee, stating, “It’s like one of them Rocky movies when he’s driving through the tunnel with the f**king Rolls-Royce and he’s having flashbacks and sh*t, you got this Mr. T muthafucka over here rapping out the basement. That was the vibe.”
Although the ‘Rock The Bells’ rhymer did his best to destroy Canibus with his diss tracks, he admitted to Daniels that Canibus’ resilience was frustrating, unveiling, “He’s rapping in my ears, biting at my calf muscles. I’m over here doing sitcoms and sh*t. I’m like, ‘Yo, this sh*t is crazy right now!’ This motherf**ker f**king with me, bothering me in the middle of the night.”
LL Cool J also revealed that he felt pressure from the culture at large to respond even though he was busy, adding, “Our culture is crazy ’cause they won’t leave you alone about this sh*t. [They would ask me] ‘What you gonna do about your man?’ You just gotta deal with this sh*t, right? So I would say Canibus.”
Canibus and LL Cool J initially fell out when the former hopped on the LL Cool J track ‘4, 3, 2, 1’, and ended up getting on the wrong side of the ‘Rock The Bells’ icon. During the original recording of the 1997 single, Canibus rapped, “Yo L, is that mic on your arm? Let me borrow that,” referencing the tattoo of a microphone on LL Cool J’s arm.
The Queens native took this as a sign of disrespect because, for him, the tattoo was a symbol of his superiority on the mic. As such, he removed the Canibus line and instead used his verse on the 1997 single to diss Williams, rapping, “When young sons fantasize of borrowing flows, tell little shorty with the big mouth the bank is closed”.
This commenced a vicious back-and-forth between the two. However, in 2024, LL Cool J admitted that he has no hard feelings toward Canibus and said to Ray Daniels, “I wish him the best.”