In hip-hop ... aww hell, in popular music terms, LL Cool J is a veteran. Now, that's just a polite way of insinuating that he's old. C'mon, dude is 40! He's been rockin' a mic since the 1980s, when he took rap mainstream with cuts like "I Can't Live Without My Radio" and the more bombastic "Rock the Bells."

Sure, he was born James Todd Smith, but we all know him as LL Cool J, which we all know stands for "Ladies Love Cool James." Face it, you've had to be smooth, be able to walk with cool confidence and rhyme with swagger to pull off a hip-hop handle like that back in the day. And he did. And, more importantly, he still does.

When you've been around a while, people try to position you as part of the past, not in line with the future. People have tried to call LL a has-been before, but he's too agile, too talented, to fall into that trap. Maybe you do, or maybe you don't remember 1990, when LL opened the title track of his then-new album Mama Said Knock You Out with the immortal line, "Don't call it a comeback / I've been here for years / rockin' my peers and puttin' suckas in fear." He proceeded to blow his critics out of the water and to blow more minds than ever with his lyrical deftness, his pacing, his flow, his power.

And no one has ever doubted him since.
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