The thing that sets Queens, New York, apart, according to LL Cool J
LL Cool J has come a long way from his upbringing in the New York borough of Queens to become one of hip hop’s great legends, has travelled the world as a touring rapper, and has even become a film and TV star.
But for all his success and globe-trotting, LL never once forgot his roots, and Queens has always remained central to his life.
Even as LL became known by TV fans for his long-running role in NCIS: Long Angeles, his dedication to his East Coast home never faltered. The rapper has for years operated a Queens-based charity called Jump & Ball, which runs an athletic and team-building initiative for the area’s young people.
In 2024, LL’s commitment to Queens and its people was recognised when he was awarded a special plaque honouring his work for the community, which required him to make a little speech.
“In this community,” he said during his address, “you can do anything if you put your mind to it. If I can make it off the streets of Queens, so can you”.
LL has always maintained that there’s something special that defines Queens, and during a 2008 interview with Unkut, he offered up some thoughts about what that special something is. He posed whether Queens, being a “slightly more middle-class” place where “people just had time to really focus on the music”, made it unique.
“I don’t think it’s nothin’ in the water!” he insisted, “I just think that you had a lotta people who saw a lotta other people can do it and it motivated them to do it”.
LL reflected on his own inspirations from when he was a young person growing up in Queens. He remembered seeing Run-DMC “ride by in their cars”, which he found hugely motivating as an aspiring rapper. In turn, he later became an inspiration to others.
Kids in Queens have been exposed to some great local hip hop artists through the years, and LL Cool J believes this can be hugely inspiring for young people coming up. There’s nothing innately special about Queens, nothing “in the water”, as he put it, but it is an environment in which lots of people have worked hard at their craft, which means “a lotta people” there have also become inspired to pursue their own dreams.