The New York rapper who claims he “paved the way” for Drake to rap about his feelings
There’s no question that Drake wears his feelings on his sleeve in his songs. The Canadian rapper offers up a certain sense of vulnerability into a hip-hop culture that, traditionally, had tended towards presenting itself as decidedly hard-edged.
But while Drake may have mastered the art of rapping feelings-powered verses, he certainly didn’t invent it. People have been rapping about how they feel for decades, tracing right back to the culture’s golden age.
A particular hip-hop legend has, for his part, claimed to have “paved the way” for MCs who like Drake to rap about their feelings. New York’s own LL Cool J thinks it’s his legacy that has allowed for rappers to open up and be softer in their songs. To his mind, it all traces back to his 1987 song ‘I Need Love.’
The theme of ‘I Need Love’ is very much contained within its title. As its creator insisted during a conversation for Interview Magazine in 2013, he wrote it because he really did need love at the time. The honesty of the track clearly resonated with listeners and it became a big hit for LL, charting at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also breaking the UK, reaching number 8 there. It was one of the first rap songs to ever do well in the UK.
But while mainstream audiences were very receptive to the song, LL recalled that, in hip-hop circles, there had initially been “a lot of friction” surrounding it. The community back then was “really conservative,” LL argued to Complex in 2020, and if “the energy” of a song of the era “wasn’t testosterone” and aggressive, “like I’m punching you in your face, kicking the door down,” then credit to its writer wasn’t always forthcoming.
LL claimed that “you only get brownie points for creativity within certain parameters” in hip-hop. If the content of a song wasn’t “considered 1000% street” back in the day, then it was often difficult for a rapper to receive the praise their efforts might have warranted. But he believed he had helped to ease the situation a bit with ‘I Need Love,’ which showed a new, softer approach to hip-hop was possible and worthy.
‘I Need Love,’ he claimed, “created a genre,” and he was happy that it did so. LL believed rappers like Fabolous, Jadakiss and Drake could consequently rise in its wake and find great success with their more vulnerable, feelings-based lyrics, without being mocked for a perceived lack of hard lyricism.
As for Drake specifically, LL was keen to differentiate himself. He was adamant that they are “very different artists” on the grounds that LL himself has made “a lot of hard records” and is “very diverse.” The inference there, then, is that Drake is not so diverse, but LL was sure to show positivity towards Drake all the same.
LL said he was happy for the success of artists like Drake, and he was happy, as he saw it, to have laid the groundwork for it. “I like a lot of his music, too,” he said.