April 20, 2026 • 40 mins
LL Cool J didn’t conquer hip‑hop by being the toughest or the slickest, he did it by being unabashedly himself. Kai & Emmanuel break down the charisma, contradictions, and carefully crafted showmanship that turned a Queens teenager into a global cultural force. Through BBC archive gems and Kai’s own teenage misadventures, revisit the chaotic early days of Def Jam Records and the Soft Boy anthem that shook hip‑hop.
Connect with the team!
- Follow our hosts Kai Wright and Emmanuel Dzotsi
- Follow Pushkin on Instagram, LinkedIn or X
- Follow BBC Podcasts on YouTube and Instagram
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So here's the thing about Big Lives.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
The whole premise here is that everyone, all of us,
think they know the story of some of these folks,
but there's more to it. So when you tell a
friend about this show, don't just say it's podcasts about icons.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Say I heard.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Something about David Bowie or Jane Fonda that genuinely mess
with my head a little bit. And while you're at it,
leave us a review. Emmanuel and I would really really
appreciate it. From BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries, this is
Big Lives.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm Kyrie, I'm a Manel Jochi.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
And on this show we take a single cultural icon
and break down their life and their impact using the
BBC's incredible archives. And today, sir, today we are talking
about Ladies Love Cool James.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yes, El Hell Cool ja wait wait stands for yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
His name is the Ladies Love Cool James James is
his actual name.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
What do you think when I when I tell you
about Ladies Love?
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Oh man, I mean I just get this image of
like this quintessentially nineties rapper with apps.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That's what The ads are very important. The ads are
quite important. I need to correct you it's the eighties.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I mean well eighties, okay, okay today.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
He put out an album a couple of years ago
with Q Tip, but his fame is in the eighties,
and I think, certainly anybody my age, probably one of
the first things you think is this sound.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
L el cool Jay is hot as battle anybody.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I don't care you exactly. Wow, you are roking to
this tune. This is your music.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
The Bells was like, that's his from his first album.
It's the big hit off his first album in the
early eighties. He went on to just kill it all
throughout the decade. Has four platinum albums, a couple of
them multi platinum and gold.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Each album is full of these.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Iconic songs rock the Bells, going back to Cali, Boom
and System. Cars drove by with the boom and System.
You know, of course, Mama said, knock.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
You Out is one of the most iconic. Mama said,
knock you out. I'm gonna knock you out.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
But as you can of here with some of that,
right can be. But like we're also laughing at LLL
a little bit because like he was the king.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Of Cordy lyrics.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I have to say, like he in general was really
a corny guy. Is I'm I'm not gonna talk about
this out of past tense because he's still working very hard.
He just put out an album a couple of years ago.
He is a corny, corny man. Probably one of his
biggest hits, right is I'm Bad from the album Bigger
and Deffer, as in like, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Oh, like literally bad.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
It's an acroy Oh okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So that's the second album.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I mean, in this song, it's got lyrics like no
rapper can rap quite like I can. I'll take a
muscle bound man and put his face in the sand.
I'm the baddest taking out all the rookies. So forget
or yo eat cool Jake cookies. I'm Bad. Wow, it's
(03:50):
good stuff. I mean, I don't know nobody I think.
I think, look, I'm not a hip hop head. But
like at the time and now, I don't think there's
a lot of people who are saying, you know, ll
was like some kind of like lyrical genius, you know, right.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
He is not seen as the Kendrick of his day.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And you know, again, I am not a hip hop scholar.
I don't really know what it means to be a
great lyricist. So I don't want to make two bigger claims,
but I don't think so. And also like I don't
think he was ever a believable tough guy. I do
not believe that you're going to take a muscle bound
man and put his face with this answer, Like, I
don't believe that's gonna happen. I think what elll is
(04:33):
best understood as is a showman. He is here to
perform for you. I mean, listen to how he describes himself.
I have a piece of tape that I've found in
the archives. We don't know when it's from because it
was filed incorrectly, but I'm pretty sure it is the
late eighties, at the height of his fame, and he says,
you know, like, I am not here to give you
(04:56):
a message. I am not here to perform violence. This
is what I'm here for. Listen to this.
Speaker 6 (05:01):
I mean, it's not that I'm not away of the
plight of the youth in you know, the situation is
going on, and you know I speak about it a
little bit, but I'm really not a message guy. You know,
I'm a very light hearted, humorous, Eddie Murphy type of guy.
I don't see no reason to rap about blood and violence.
It's unnecessary to me, you know, I mentioned it a
little bit. You know, I have my opinions, but I mean,
(05:22):
for the most part, I feel like music is a
time when people want to relieve precious.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So that's how he is himself, you know, right.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And the thing that I always was drawn to with
him is he is a guy who is like, unapologetically
trying really hard to be liked by people, and a
genre and a culture in which you're not supposed to
try hard at all, let alone.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Try hard to be liked by people, you know, right,
I think he.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Has misunderstood the word cool, particularly as it applies to
black men.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
It's supposed to just.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
All come easy, you know, it's all supposed to be natural.
Nothing is coming natural to l He is showing you
the scene. He has more theater kid than.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Hip hop kid, gotcha, gotcha? And he's a bot of performance.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And right and look at me, look at me, you know,
the need to look at me.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
And I am here for that for him, Like I
actually like him for those reasons, not in spite of
those reasons.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
And also I.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Think what you hear, and I'm going to try to
show you in the course of this conversation is LLL
is a very serious musician actually, Like he is quite
thoughtful about what he is doing and the work that
he is making, and all of the work that he
does as a showman as well.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And you can see all of.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
This come together in the story behind one of his
songs on that Bigger Endeavor album released in nineteen eighty
seven that turns out to be one of the most
unlikely smash hits in all of hip hop history, like
you should never have been a hit, and it's a
huge song, and so I want to tell you this story.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Of that song.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And I also then I don't want to tell you
about my own relationship to that song, because you know,
this one's a bit personal.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Wow. So you are mounting a defense of the corny.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I am mounting a defense of the corny.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
All right, I'm here for it. Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Welcome back, it's Big Lives. We are talking about LLL
Cool Jay. And before we get to the story of
that nineteen eighty seven track, that unlikely hit that I
want to tell you about, we got to back up
and explain a little bit.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
How llll became a star in the first place.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Okay, So, James Todd Smith born January fourteenth, nineteen sixty eight,
in Bashore, New York. His early life is marred by
domestic violence. Right around nineteen seventy two, when he's four
years old, his father shoots his mother and his grandfather.
So he and his mom move into his grandparents' home
(08:07):
in Saint Albans, Queens. And that's important because that's where
he's raised and he is forever associated with Queens, as
honestly are like a lot of rappers and DJs of
the early eighties and nineties.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
The BBC at some point actually went to Llo cole J's.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Grandmother's house in nineteen eighty eight, and it's this like
really incredibly sweet scene. You can just hear and see
like how much she dotes on him. At what point
he's like, you know, because he's twenty or something in
this clip, and he's like picking food out of the fridge,
you know, eating it like a teenager, and she's trying
(08:44):
to feed him real food instead of that she's mothering him.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
You stop, you're hungry, right, and you'll take Nathan out
of the phrase of you, tad, don't you put the
brain in your mouth like that. It's not nine like
I'm starving you to do.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Yeah, like she's sweet, she's He talks about how he
grew up safe under her care and how his grandmother
actually really supported his early career.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
When I was about nine years old, started listening to
the first play for rap records and the tapes that
will flow up through the neighborhood. And then I started
sending my grandmother to the store and write down the
name of the rap records that I wanted to hit.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 6 (09:24):
And that was just like going to school for me.
You know. It was like bringing a new book home
and I just open it up and read it, you
know what I mean. Got a degree.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
He got a degree, got a degree in hip hop, uh,
you know. And so she's supporting him. The whole family
actually supported him. His grandfather bought him like a two
thousand dollars worth of equipment, including two turntables, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Mixer and amplify. This is well, he's a kid, he's
a preteen.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
You know, and how can I just he's at this point,
what year is this? Like this is still this like
late seventies.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
No, this is all in the eighties.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
This is all happening eighties, eighties.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
It's all in the eighties. You know, his career starts.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I mean he when he he signs his first record
deal in nineteen eighty four. He's seventeen years old, you know,
right right right, like he's he is a preteen when.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
But his hasn't even really been a thing for that long,
like you're talking maybe like ten years if that, like
since it first immerged in the seventies.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
And this is the big this is the beginning of
hip hop, and he is there at the beginning of HCTIM.
He is certainly there at the beginning of commercial hip.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Hop right right it starts to explode.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
I just think it's amazing that like his grandfather and
like his mother even people were just like, oh, you
know what this music which is banning commercially viable, Yes,
you can't do that, pursue that, We'll spend thousand dollars
on that. That's like they should remarkable full site. But well,
(10:58):
maybe they just loved him that much. They just wanted
to make Maybe they just.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Loved him that much, Emmanuel.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Maybe they just loved him and maybe that's how he
got corny, you know, because he was could care of
you know. I also like, so we've talked about his
corny stage name, you know, ll cool j So first
he considered calling himself.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
J Ski j Ski like s k I and uh.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
As in snowsworts, but unfortunately at the time that was
more like nose sports.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
There was like a real association.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Between cocaine and hip hop culture or l L Young
LLL fought that and he did not want to be
associated with cocaine. He didn't want that idea. And there
were other rappers. I mean, Curtis Blow was Big Blow,
you know, Joe Ski Love was Big Ski.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So this was a thing and he was like, no, no, no, no,
I want to be Ladies love Cool James. And you know,
as we have discussed, he was right because the ladies
have indeed loved Cool James. I have indeed loved Cool
James for that physique. I mean, this guy, he's muscled.
(12:20):
If anybody who hasn't seen him, his visual image is
important to understand. Yeah, I mean he was a teenager
when he came out right, and he was young and muscly.
He had dimples, you know, ripped abs and famously these lips,
the lips, right, I.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Mean, he has these voluptuous.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Lips that he knows are voluptuous, and any time he's talking,
he's like constantly licking his lips.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Oh man, exactly like that, but he pulls it off.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
He manages to do it in a way that is yeah, cordy,
but also like all right, you could get it ll
all right. So he's he's got this background, he's got
his name, he's making tapes in the basement. The same
year that he chooses this lady's love name, he does
get a break.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
He signs with deaf Jam Records nineteen eighty four. He's
seventeen years old.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
And you know, I think we're gonna have to take
a sideline quickly about def Jam. I don't want to
go too far into this because we will quickly outstrip
my hip hop history. But suffice to say, obviously, deaf
Jam becomes one of the most important record labels in
hip hop. It's co founded by Rick Rubin and Russell
Simmons famously run out of Rick Rubin's NYU dorm room,
(13:46):
and nineteen eighty four they signed the Beastie Boys. The
Beastie Boys actually ad Rock apparently is, at least according
to LL, who told Rick Rubin to listen to his tape,
And so Rick Rubin listens.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
To his tape, he likes it, and they.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Make a single. They cut a single called I Need
a Beat, and it sells over one hundred thousand copies,
you know, like it ends up being just kind of
the first sign that deaf jam generally and L COLJ
specifically might just be a new force in rap.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
So I Need a Beat works out right, like it
gets them started. But a lot of people first encounter
LL col J in a film called Crush Groove. You
have any any notion of what this film is? Have
you ever heard of such a thing?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
No?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
No, okay? Nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
This was the latest in a series of truly awesome,
truly terrible black films set in like hip hop culture,
like with hip hop stars that like all happened in
the early eighties, So like movies called break in Beach Street,
break Into Electric Boogoloo.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
That was what I really.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Remember, breaking into Electric Boogo.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Electric Boogoloo, because this is the beginning of break dancing
and d boys, and so it's a very visual wool medium,
you know, like it's a visual art and so like
in hip hop battles and all of that is what
these movies are about. And so Deaf Jam says, you know,
Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons say, you know, well we
need one.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
We got to make a cross groove, right, you.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Know if they haven't even put out a full length
album yet, but they're already making myth right about like
how big a deal Deaf Jam is.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
So you know, they make this movie.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
It's shot in twenty six days across New York City.
You got run dmc in it, you got Curtis Blow
in it. They're all playing themselves, like these big rappers
playing themselves. But the narrative of the movie, it needs
a breakout start needs a rookie, you.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Know, you need yeah, you need someone to put on
a fire what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Okay, it's like what the new Deaf Jam talent is gonna.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Be, and that is ll cool J.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Well, so the script calls for young ll cool J
playing himself, playing Llo cool J. These are all people
playing themselves, you know, to audition for Rick Rubin in
the famous NYU dorm Ell is just performing this like defiant.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Raw, like.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Just urgent rap, right like where he's just like so thirsty,
you know, to be like I'm gonna show you.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I'm going to show you rock, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And he plays and it's the song I Can't Live
without My Radio, which is gonna be like a big song,
and he does it.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
He performs it, and this.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Is like it's forty five seconds of just pure electricity.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
It's so oh so it's not even one of those
movie scenes, but it's like feels contrived and well, do really.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Within the genre.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
I feel like there's always because of the movie with
about music where the actual music.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Is you know, it's okay, control your expectations. This is
about the energy, the energy of it. Listen to this
what up man?
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I said, no more adition, sy Man.
Speaker 6 (17:23):
Auditions are over there, right, you gotta come back next week.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Maybe we can work something out right box.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Through a right, no.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
More man, my Brady, don't believe me.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I like it loud.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
I'm the man with the box that can rock the
crowd down the streets to the heart to me wan
chake DC. If it brings the coffee. Sorry if you
can't understand, but I need a brady go inside my
hand to me too, A face opposit, saying, but I
kick my fine your way that hands.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
My story is bro.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
My neighborhood is talking, but a still spot don't.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And I'm out to cross my day. It's cool, Chake,
I tell a state.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
The show, but I couldn't something real.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Hey, okay, okay, LL will not be denied.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
You will give me this audition. I'm gonna show you
I love when he's like box playing, so you know,
so you know, I will say crush groove for the
genre was commercially successful. It made eleven million dollars on
a three million dollar budget. It was deeply panned. CX
(18:39):
hated it. Russell Simmons even hated it. Really yeah, it's
been It was a good movie and it wasn't. But
more important for our story is it does that song?
That little moment sets up LL to release his debut
album Radio in nineteen eighty five. It's Deaf Jam's first
full length album release, and it goes platinum. It sells
(19:02):
over half a million copies in five months time.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Hey wow, it is a smash.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
It wow and it includes rock the Bells, and it
includes I Can't Live Without My Radio.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
And LL is immediately a star, just immediately.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
I was going to say, at that point in time,
on any rap albums going platinum.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
There are only four I think platinum albums in the
eighties for rap, and LLLL has two of them, and
this is one of them. So he's one of the first,
which is to say he's a big star already, like nineteen.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Eighty four eighty five, he's had his breakout moment.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
And that brings me to the song I Want to
Talk to You About, which comes from his next album,
his follow up album in nineteen eighty seven. This man
makes a rap ballad, a song.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Called bodied Love.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, yeah, a rap about a love song. It's called
I Need Love.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Do you know this song?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Are you at all familiar?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Writers don't know this song? Maybe once you play it,
I will realize a nerve and film the virus. But
right now I'm drawing a blank.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Well, that's understanding me. So it was I have to say.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
In the UK in the eighties, it becomes controversial and
they hip hop scene, you know, mildly controversial, but there's
some pushback about it before it becomes a massive hit.
But so ell, it's his sophomore album, Bigger and Defer.
As we talked about, I'm Bad is the big single.
It's got these other great albums on it. It's got
this ode to scratching to DJ called Go Cut Creator
(20:36):
Go that's his DJ's name, Cut Creator.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
It's a great song.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
It's got this song called Bristol Hotel, which is kind
of an ode to misogyny, I think.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Is the best way to describe it.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
You know, like it's about having sex with like loose
young women at this stank hotel in Queens. But honestly,
it's so silly and so like performative that you almost
don't hear it that way.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Right, you kind of given benefit of a dot because
it just sounds kind of ridiculous, and.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Right, what says the guy, I don't know, you know,
that's right, you know. But and then and then it
has this ballad.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It's a love song, a rap album, and it's soft
and vulnerable. It starts with like a little piano chime
and then the fans start screaming.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
You hear ladies screaming for him in the background.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
They're not gonna learn in the womb.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Sometimes I'll stare at the.
Speaker 8 (21:31):
Wall and in the back of the don and it
grows confessionalized that like Little dum du Du plays, he
talks about how he's tired of being a player, he's
tired a lion to his girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
He knows he's hurt her feelings, he knows that he
he is ready to be a real lover, a real gentleman.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
It's like I'm here, baby, I'm gonna I mean, this
is the quiet Storm it could have been, you know,
it could have been on on radio alongside like, you know,
Barry met Art, alongside Keith Sweat. He's not kiddy g
He's not a kiddy ge.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Okay, I'm not going to like you see, but it's
but it is more like it's closer to R and
B than rap.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Got It, Got It, Got It, Got It.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
And to be clear, it does become an absolute hit.
But but there is another story that like, I think
says something about ll that I really like around the song.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Right, So later that year it comes out. Later that year,
he's in.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
London for a massive death Jam package tour, and they
think of it as like this is like hip hop
being exported to the world, you.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Know, like that's the way they want people to think
about it, right, And it's got Public Enemy and Eric
B and Rock m and ell is one of the
headliners right right.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
It's kind of seems like reminiscent of like the Motime
review tools. It's like, we're going to bring all these
black artists and take them around the world and display
this news sort of like genre creating here.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
That's exactly right. And then we're doing a lot of
this in hip hop in the eighties too. Like a
first concert I ever got to go to was like
a Fat Boys It was called the fresh Fest, and
I think this was like Freshfest three or something by
the time I was going to go, and it was
like Fat Boys and run DMC and like all the
big acts would roll up in one, you know and take.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Over a stadium and you'd go and like have like
a real.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Hip hop scene because hip hop was still kind of underground,
you know, not underground, but it was an alternative.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
It was a counter culture, and it was a counter culture.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Dominated by young men, young masculine men who were like,
you know, not here for love songs. So they take
this kind of show to London and L's turn comes,
he strides onto the stage all that ll charisma style.
(24:00):
He's got like his like signature fuzzy cagle. He wore
this like furry light cagle hat all around all the time,
and a rope chain, so it's kind of like a
riff on run DMC's kangles and chains, and you know
it's it's in fact, a crowd of mostly young men,
(24:20):
and he chooses instead of rock the bells, instead of
like any of those harder songs, he comes out with
I Need Love and like that little soft tingle piano start,
you know, and he starts his little breathy rhymes about
(24:41):
needing love and not wanting to hurt his lady anymore
and all of this.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Oh he like basically just like I'm in my soft
Boy era.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
And they the crowd is not here for it, like
they are not here for Oh no, they are not
here for it, Like we did not come to hear
soft Boy.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
He did not.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Yeah, And it's like there's a tension. There's a tension,
and then eventually they just start booing him, like they
just boo his ass.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
He is unapologetic in the moment, and he is unapologetic
after it.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
So you know he loves this song and I love
this song.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
And you know, if you go back to also that
nineteen eighty eight interview that the BBC did at his
grandmother's house, you get another part of like, I think,
why he's really into this song? She talks about it. Listen,
listen to her tell the story of how the song
was written.
Speaker 7 (25:33):
I want him always to be respectable and be a
gentleman at all times. I demand that he changed my
life a life because he was quite noisy, and.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
I had to sleepless a lot of sleepless.
Speaker 7 (25:51):
Nights listening to them downstairs. Now, his last album, I
Need Love, it was in.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And he awakened me. It was such gorgeous music.
Speaker 7 (26:05):
And I was in the deadline and I was dancing
be in to bed and I say, damn, Chid, that
is too beautiful to be Instrunou, I said, needs some words.
I said, I can picture myself dancing with a partner
and who's being different things? He who is doing different
things to me? And the next morning Chad came upstairs
(26:28):
with the lyrics.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
I source the whole world, especially girl finally find you
watch a Need Love.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
Wow, it's so sweet, Like I had Grandma dancing afterda.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Is dancing in the bed and telling him how to run.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
But also that okay, that explains hearing her explains so
much like right, if you're growing up in that environment
with those sorts of people around you, and there's that
like I feel like so many other people, it's almost
like there, or at least the way I think I
thought about a lot of rappers from that era is
they're making their music it's all about it's coming from
(27:07):
place of rebellion, you know what I mean. Uh, it's
it's a rejection of sort of like the soft music
of their parents and the vibes of it, and they're.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Going in a much more like like lyrically like real.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Direction, and it's in opposition to and not in conversation
with people in I can't imagine anybody from NWA playing this.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Getting writing tips from their parents, you know, how to
fuck the policy which is not to say anything about
all of that other music, but it is like in
defense of l ELL's corniness, you know, because it's a
whole different kind of idea about manhood that he's performing
(27:56):
and describing.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
It's also just like I was just thinking about other
rappers that we hold up right, and I feel like
for most of them, it's like the arc is kind
of flipped, so it's like they start making really hard
music and then eventually they kind of grow up and
then start paying almost to their mothers and music and
making so kind of love.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I mean, ice Cube is now in kids movies.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yes, of a w a of fuck the Police, of
like many many different graphic ways to kill a man
is yet free, yeah, so you know whereas l Is
still has a serious exempt channel that is a giant
(28:40):
wet love kiss to hip hop. He has a really
great serious exempt channel where Roxane Chante has a drive
time show right that is like three hours of like
old school and new school hip hop. He has a
YouTube thing where him and a DJ do this badass
like it's called Salute the Sample where they do this
(29:02):
etymology of samples and they go through and they're like,
this little piece of music here, you know, the play
it in LL identify it and he'll, like the djil'll
start telling you, like the different where it came from,
in all the different ways it's been used in LL
is just like freestyling a music history over the.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Top of it.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
This man knows music, and sometimes we'll break into freestyle
and it's good. Like he's not in some kids film,
you know, right, so you know who was the real
hip hop er here, But you know also.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
He on all of this.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
What you're hearing, right is like we're both connecting to
his sort of just presenting a different idea of manhood
and a different.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Idea of masculinity that did not escape my attention as
a teenager that was his peer in the eighties. And
just as a little bit of a PostScript, I want
to tell you about that after the break.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Welcome Back, Big Lives, we are talking about LL cool J,
and now actually we're going to talk about me and
my relationship.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
To col J.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Okay, okay, you know I said at the beginning of
this manuel that this one's kind of personal in particular
the I Need Love song, and uh, there's a lot
about LL that you know, I was a teenager in
the eighties, right, So while he was living out this
teenage stuff, I was living in alongside him and.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Taken notes and some of that led to some pretty
cringe behavior.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
So who among us?
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Who among us? But mine has involved LL a lot.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
So one of the most horrifying moments in my memory
of myself occurred when I was in Uh I think, well,
I need.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Love, had to be out. So it's nineteen eighty seven,
so I was at this point, I was a freshman
in high school. Oh my god, I can't believe it
was that late. I couldn't be.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Maybe it was the summer before that. I hope maybe
I was at least like fourteen or something. I'm there
is a young woman, her name is Lisa. I'm not
going to give her whole name because she should be
left out of this. Who was at my church who
I was trying desperately to tell myself that I was
in love with, Okay, because I am a homosexual, and
(31:37):
I did not. I was not in touch with that
about myself at the time. I was really really invested in, like,
I need a girlfriend. Everybody else is getting a girlfriend,
everybody else is falling in love.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I gotta fall in love. I have decided it's Lisa.
And back in the day, you know, when you fell
in love with somebody, you made mixtapes, got it, you know?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
So I just I there was this moment where I
was it was this, Yeah, it was the summer because
I was at my grandmother's house in Alabama, and I
had these two little tape recorders.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
And I.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Recorded myself saying, I don't remember what, but some corny
ash shit to poor Lisa.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Oh wow, before teeing up.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I need love.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Inspired by this song by all of his vulnerability. Like
the other young guys are like, I need love. That's
a chump song.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I'm like, that's exactly the song I need to express
my love. I'm glad that you're calling it that it is.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
I mean the fact that you made a mixtape that's
sweet about you, like took your time to record. I
can only imagine what you recorded. It's me kai just
leaving this for you. It makes me think of you.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
And then you have.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
I really shrink in my chair and I sent it
to her, and I have to assume she just never responded,
because I don't have any memory of what came out.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
That could be two things happened. Never responded, you have
you repressed it.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
You don't want to go there, but you know, it
was all part of like throughout from then on, I
was trying so hard. I was I was just preoccupied
with trying to figure out how to appropriately be a man,
right because everybody around me who was doing it, they
(33:49):
were cool and calm and collect all the things you
know that you're supposed to be, you know. And I
was so sentimental and I tried so hard at everything.
I was like lll like I could just see like right,
And I couldn't have told you this at the time,
(34:09):
but there was something about him I was really drawn to.
And I think it was because he was performing something
that was more accessible to me, where I was allowed
to be a tryhard and I was allowed to be sentimental.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I was.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
I remember this moment I played football right like, and
I don't want to disavow playing. I was terrible at it, obviously,
this gay kid running around playing football. The coach told
me I should have played track instead, you know. Yeah,
I was better at conditioning than playing football.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
But I remember this moment where the coach quit right
like you.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
It called him meeting, you know, gathered around, and he
announced he's quitting. He was going to a bigger, better school.
And I burst into tears right.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Like, I'm sobbing right because I think it's a big.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
In sentimental most in a moment, but I look around
the room, and I'm only person.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Crying, Oh wow, yeah, yeah, everyone, what's this guy?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
What's up with the gay guy?
Speaker 3 (35:08):
But I had so many moments like that, you know,
And I just think LL was carving out space I
want to believe, for others, certainly for me. And I
can think about it now in retrospect, maybe more than
it was at the time. But I just think he
was presenting a kind of masculinity that.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
We just need more of, you know, like we.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Just need more space for that. We certainly needed more
space for that in the eighties. We certainly needed more
space for that in black culture in the eighties. And
I love LL because he was providing it. And I
have to say one last thing, Yeah, is I feel
years later, I felt kind of vindicated about all this
(35:56):
because so my partner of twenty years, you know, who
is a legendary dork in his own right.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
I mean, he is just behind LL. His ownership of
Corny a white man, I must say, from the Midwest.
When we met.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
One of the first things that made me be like,
I want to know this guy. We hooked up, we
had sex in the middle of the night. We didn't
know each other, right.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
You know, but The next day.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
He emailed me and his email handle was ll cool
Jed because his name is Jed and his AOL handle
had been ll Colts.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Back at AOL, his AIM handle had been ll cool jed.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
He to this day I only email him to his
email address that's his LL cool jed.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
That's incredible. That's incredible. Honestly, listen, it sounds like LLO
cool j was.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
Yeah, he was a real model for you, but also
he followed your path to follow that that did lead
you to love.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
That did lead me to love. Right, So if I
just think about that mixtape.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
For Lisa, I actually sent it emotionally to Jed like
thirty years beforehand is basically let happen.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Wow, that's really beautiful.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Well, thank you for affirming me, and nobody send me
hate mail about this.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
Now.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Listen the ladies, the men to we love you.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
We love you, Kai, Well, that was the point of
all this. Thanks for saying, Okay, then I've done that.
So who do you got from me next week? Emmanuel?
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Well, I can't wait to pay these for you, because
I do feel like this is one where you would
know exactly who it is the moment you hear the
voice okay, but don't give it away to listeners. Okay,
so I'm going to pay you this first clip.
Speaker 9 (37:55):
It's important to grab his tail as soon as you
grab his head, otherwise he will rap his great coils
round you won't give you a very nasty squeeze.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
I actually don't recognize the voice, but really, context clues
are quite strong for me in this.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I do if it's who I think it is. I
enjoy this man, but I can't I could actually couldn't
say for sure yet.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Okay, okay, well, let me play you another one.
Speaker 9 (38:21):
One of the most popular programs at the time was
was showing animals, live animals on live television, and it
was terrifically popular because the animals always bit people or
wet down people's fronts, or escaped and jumped on the
microphone boom, that sort of thing, which was tremendous.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Now I know the voice. This is great, what a
great idea, This is great.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
Okay, just in case you are at home when you
really still don't know, we'll play one more for you, guys.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
There's more.
Speaker 10 (38:50):
Meaning, and we lived to an understanding. In the gorilla,
it's an animal, I know, what's that similar. We see
the world in the same way as they.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Do the whisper in particular guy you know, but I
feel like it's this is a very specific genre of
television viewer who immediately knows who this guy is.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
And I'm in it.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Wow, not you ending this by calling me a nud
but yes, yes, in fact, that's.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
My time where you're doing so. But me too, I'm
owning myself. We're both in it.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Well, we will both know it out next week.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Big Lives is a production of BBC Studios in Pushkin Industries.
It's hosted by me Kai Wright and Emmanuel Joji from
BBC Studios.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Our producer is Emma Weatherill.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Our archive producer is Samira Childream executive producer.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Is Annie Brown.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
The sound designer is Melvin Ricaby, production coordinator is Galen
Davis Connolly, and production manager is Mabel Finnegan Wright from
Pushkin Industries. Our executive producer is Constanza Gayato, producer Daphne Chen,
legal advisor Jake Flanagan, and marketing by Morgan Ratner and
Jordan Vick Millen.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Get add free.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Episodes of Big Lives by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Subscribers
also get ad free episodes of all Pushkin shows, full
audio books, series binges to shows like deep Cover and Revision,
This History and more. Sign up on the Big Live
Show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm,
slash plus.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Thanks for your support.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So here's the thing about Big Lives.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
The whole premise here is that everyone, all of us,
think they know the story of some of these folks,
but there's more to it. So when you tell a
friend about this show, don't just say it's podcasts about icons.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Say I heard.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Something about David Bowie or Jane Fonda that genuinely mess
with my head a little bit. And while you're at it,
leave us a review. Emmanuel and I would really really
appreciate it. From BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries, this is
Big Lives.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm Kyrie, I'm a Manel Jochi.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
And on this show we take a single cultural icon
and break down their life and their impact using the
BBC's incredible archives. And today, sir, today we are talking
about Ladies Love Cool James.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yes, El Hell Cool ja wait wait stands for yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
His name is the Ladies Love Cool James James is
his actual name.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
What do you think when I when I tell you
about Ladies Love?
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Oh man, I mean I just get this image of
like this quintessentially nineties rapper with apps.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That's what The ads are very important. The ads are
quite important. I need to correct you it's the eighties.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I mean well eighties, okay, okay today.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
He put out an album a couple of years ago
with Q Tip, but his fame is in the eighties,
and I think, certainly anybody my age, probably one of
the first things you think is this sound.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
L el cool Jay is hot as battle anybody.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I don't care you exactly. Wow, you are roking to
this tune. This is your music.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
The Bells was like, that's his from his first album.
It's the big hit off his first album in the
early eighties. He went on to just kill it all
throughout the decade. Has four platinum albums, a couple of
them multi platinum and gold.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Each album is full of these.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Iconic songs rock the Bells, going back to Cali, Boom
and System. Cars drove by with the boom and System.
You know, of course, Mama said, knock.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
You Out is one of the most iconic. Mama said,
knock you out. I'm gonna knock you out.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
But as you can of here with some of that,
right can be. But like we're also laughing at LLL
a little bit because like he was the king.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Of Cordy lyrics.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I have to say, like he in general was really
a corny guy. Is I'm I'm not gonna talk about
this out of past tense because he's still working very hard.
He just put out an album a couple of years ago.
He is a corny, corny man. Probably one of his
biggest hits, right is I'm Bad from the album Bigger
and Deffer, as in like, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Oh, like literally bad.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
It's an acroy Oh okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So that's the second album.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I mean, in this song, it's got lyrics like no
rapper can rap quite like I can. I'll take a
muscle bound man and put his face in the sand.
I'm the baddest taking out all the rookies. So forget
or yo eat cool Jake cookies. I'm Bad. Wow, it's
(03:50):
good stuff. I mean, I don't know nobody I think.
I think, look, I'm not a hip hop head. But
like at the time and now, I don't think there's
a lot of people who are saying, you know, ll
was like some kind of like lyrical genius, you know, right.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
He is not seen as the Kendrick of his day.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And you know, again, I am not a hip hop scholar.
I don't really know what it means to be a
great lyricist. So I don't want to make two bigger claims,
but I don't think so. And also like I don't
think he was ever a believable tough guy. I do
not believe that you're going to take a muscle bound
man and put his face with this answer, Like, I
don't believe that's gonna happen. I think what elll is
(04:33):
best understood as is a showman. He is here to
perform for you. I mean, listen to how he describes himself.
I have a piece of tape that I've found in
the archives. We don't know when it's from because it
was filed incorrectly, but I'm pretty sure it is the
late eighties, at the height of his fame, and he says,
you know, like, I am not here to give you
(04:56):
a message. I am not here to perform violence. This
is what I'm here for. Listen to this.
Speaker 6 (05:01):
I mean, it's not that I'm not away of the
plight of the youth in you know, the situation is
going on, and you know I speak about it a
little bit, but I'm really not a message guy. You know,
I'm a very light hearted, humorous, Eddie Murphy type of guy.
I don't see no reason to rap about blood and violence.
It's unnecessary to me, you know, I mentioned it a
little bit. You know, I have my opinions, but I mean,
(05:22):
for the most part, I feel like music is a
time when people want to relieve precious.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
So that's how he is himself, you know, right.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And the thing that I always was drawn to with
him is he is a guy who is like, unapologetically
trying really hard to be liked by people, and a
genre and a culture in which you're not supposed to
try hard at all, let alone.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Try hard to be liked by people, you know, right,
I think he.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Has misunderstood the word cool, particularly as it applies to
black men.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
It's supposed to just.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
All come easy, you know, it's all supposed to be natural.
Nothing is coming natural to l He is showing you
the scene. He has more theater kid than.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Hip hop kid, gotcha, gotcha? And he's a bot of performance.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And right and look at me, look at me, you know,
the need to look at me.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
And I am here for that for him, Like I
actually like him for those reasons, not in spite of
those reasons.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
And also I.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Think what you hear, and I'm going to try to
show you in the course of this conversation is LLL
is a very serious musician actually, Like he is quite
thoughtful about what he is doing and the work that
he is making, and all of the work that he
does as a showman as well.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And you can see all of.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
This come together in the story behind one of his
songs on that Bigger Endeavor album released in nineteen eighty
seven that turns out to be one of the most
unlikely smash hits in all of hip hop history, like
you should never have been a hit, and it's a
huge song, and so I want to tell you this story.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Of that song.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And I also then I don't want to tell you
about my own relationship to that song, because you know,
this one's a bit personal.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Wow. So you are mounting a defense of the corny.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I am mounting a defense of the corny.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
All right, I'm here for it. Let's do it.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Welcome back, it's Big Lives. We are talking about LLL
Cool Jay. And before we get to the story of
that nineteen eighty seven track, that unlikely hit that I
want to tell you about, we got to back up
and explain a little bit.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
How llll became a star in the first place.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Okay, So, James Todd Smith born January fourteenth, nineteen sixty eight,
in Bashore, New York. His early life is marred by
domestic violence. Right around nineteen seventy two, when he's four
years old, his father shoots his mother and his grandfather.
So he and his mom move into his grandparents' home
(08:07):
in Saint Albans, Queens. And that's important because that's where
he's raised and he is forever associated with Queens, as
honestly are like a lot of rappers and DJs of
the early eighties and nineties.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
The BBC at some point actually went to Llo cole J's.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Grandmother's house in nineteen eighty eight, and it's this like
really incredibly sweet scene. You can just hear and see
like how much she dotes on him. At what point
he's like, you know, because he's twenty or something in
this clip, and he's like picking food out of the fridge,
you know, eating it like a teenager, and she's trying
(08:44):
to feed him real food instead of that she's mothering him.
Speaker 7 (08:48):
You stop, you're hungry, right, and you'll take Nathan out
of the phrase of you, tad, don't you put the
brain in your mouth like that. It's not nine like
I'm starving you to do.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Yeah, like she's sweet, she's He talks about how he
grew up safe under her care and how his grandmother
actually really supported his early career.
Speaker 6 (09:12):
When I was about nine years old, started listening to
the first play for rap records and the tapes that
will flow up through the neighborhood. And then I started
sending my grandmother to the store and write down the
name of the rap records that I wanted to hit.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 6 (09:24):
And that was just like going to school for me.
You know. It was like bringing a new book home
and I just open it up and read it, you
know what I mean. Got a degree.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
He got a degree, got a degree in hip hop, uh,
you know. And so she's supporting him. The whole family
actually supported him. His grandfather bought him like a two
thousand dollars worth of equipment, including two turntables, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Mixer and amplify. This is well, he's a kid, he's
a preteen.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
You know, and how can I just he's at this point,
what year is this? Like this is still this like
late seventies.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
No, this is all in the eighties.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
This is all happening eighties, eighties.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
It's all in the eighties. You know, his career starts.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I mean he when he he signs his first record
deal in nineteen eighty four. He's seventeen years old, you know,
right right right, like he's he is a preteen when.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
But his hasn't even really been a thing for that long,
like you're talking maybe like ten years if that, like
since it first immerged in the seventies.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
And this is the big this is the beginning of
hip hop, and he is there at the beginning of HCTIM.
He is certainly there at the beginning of commercial hip.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Hop right right it starts to explode.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
I just think it's amazing that like his grandfather and
like his mother even people were just like, oh, you
know what this music which is banning commercially viable, Yes,
you can't do that, pursue that, We'll spend thousand dollars
on that. That's like they should remarkable full site. But well,
(10:58):
maybe they just loved him that much. They just wanted
to make Maybe they just.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Loved him that much, Emmanuel.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Maybe they just loved him and maybe that's how he
got corny, you know, because he was could care of
you know. I also like, so we've talked about his
corny stage name, you know, ll cool j So first
he considered calling himself.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
J Ski j Ski like s k I and uh.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
As in snowsworts, but unfortunately at the time that was
more like nose sports.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
There was like a real association.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Between cocaine and hip hop culture or l L Young
LLL fought that and he did not want to be
associated with cocaine. He didn't want that idea. And there
were other rappers. I mean, Curtis Blow was Big Blow,
you know, Joe Ski Love was Big Ski.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So this was a thing and he was like, no, no, no, no,
I want to be Ladies love Cool James. And you know,
as we have discussed, he was right because the ladies
have indeed loved Cool James. I have indeed loved Cool
James for that physique. I mean, this guy, he's muscled.
(12:20):
If anybody who hasn't seen him, his visual image is
important to understand. Yeah, I mean he was a teenager
when he came out right, and he was young and muscly.
He had dimples, you know, ripped abs and famously these lips,
the lips, right, I.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Mean, he has these voluptuous.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Lips that he knows are voluptuous, and any time he's talking,
he's like constantly licking his lips.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Oh man, exactly like that, but he pulls it off.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
He manages to do it in a way that is yeah, cordy,
but also like all right, you could get it ll
all right. So he's he's got this background, he's got
his name, he's making tapes in the basement. The same
year that he chooses this lady's love name, he does
get a break.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
He signs with deaf Jam Records nineteen eighty four. He's
seventeen years old.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
And you know, I think we're gonna have to take
a sideline quickly about def Jam. I don't want to
go too far into this because we will quickly outstrip
my hip hop history. But suffice to say, obviously, deaf
Jam becomes one of the most important record labels in
hip hop. It's co founded by Rick Rubin and Russell
Simmons famously run out of Rick Rubin's NYU dorm room,
(13:46):
and nineteen eighty four they signed the Beastie Boys. The
Beastie Boys actually ad Rock apparently is, at least according
to LL, who told Rick Rubin to listen to his tape,
And so Rick Rubin listens.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
To his tape, he likes it, and they.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Make a single. They cut a single called I Need
a Beat, and it sells over one hundred thousand copies,
you know, like it ends up being just kind of
the first sign that deaf jam generally and L COLJ
specifically might just be a new force in rap.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
So I Need a Beat works out right, like it
gets them started. But a lot of people first encounter
LL col J in a film called Crush Groove. You
have any any notion of what this film is? Have
you ever heard of such a thing?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
No?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
No, okay? Nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
This was the latest in a series of truly awesome,
truly terrible black films set in like hip hop culture,
like with hip hop stars that like all happened in
the early eighties, So like movies called break in Beach Street,
break Into Electric Boogoloo.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
That was what I really.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Remember, breaking into Electric Boogo.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Electric Boogoloo, because this is the beginning of break dancing
and d boys, and so it's a very visual wool medium,
you know, like it's a visual art and so like
in hip hop battles and all of that is what
these movies are about. And so Deaf Jam says, you know,
Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons say, you know, well we
need one.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
We got to make a cross groove, right, you.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Know if they haven't even put out a full length
album yet, but they're already making myth right about like
how big a deal Deaf Jam is.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
So you know, they make this movie.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
It's shot in twenty six days across New York City.
You got run dmc in it, you got Curtis Blow
in it. They're all playing themselves, like these big rappers
playing themselves. But the narrative of the movie, it needs
a breakout start needs a rookie, you.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Know, you need yeah, you need someone to put on
a fire what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Okay, it's like what the new Deaf Jam talent is gonna.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Be, and that is ll cool J.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Well, so the script calls for young ll cool J
playing himself, playing Llo cool J. These are all people
playing themselves, you know, to audition for Rick Rubin in
the famous NYU dorm Ell is just performing this like defiant.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Raw, like.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Just urgent rap, right like where he's just like so thirsty,
you know, to be like I'm gonna show you.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I'm going to show you rock, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And he plays and it's the song I Can't Live
without My Radio, which is gonna be like a big song,
and he does it.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
He performs it, and this.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Is like it's forty five seconds of just pure electricity.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
It's so oh so it's not even one of those
movie scenes, but it's like feels contrived and well, do really.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Within the genre.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
I feel like there's always because of the movie with
about music where the actual music.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Is you know, it's okay, control your expectations. This is
about the energy, the energy of it. Listen to this
what up man?
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I said, no more adition, sy Man.
Speaker 6 (17:23):
Auditions are over there, right, you gotta come back next week.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Maybe we can work something out right box.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Through a right, no.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
More man, my Brady, don't believe me.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I like it loud.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
I'm the man with the box that can rock the
crowd down the streets to the heart to me wan
chake DC. If it brings the coffee. Sorry if you
can't understand, but I need a brady go inside my
hand to me too, A face opposit, saying, but I
kick my fine your way that hands.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
My story is bro.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
My neighborhood is talking, but a still spot don't.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
And I'm out to cross my day. It's cool, Chake,
I tell a state.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
The show, but I couldn't something real.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Hey, okay, okay, LL will not be denied.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
You will give me this audition. I'm gonna show you
I love when he's like box playing, so you know,
so you know, I will say crush groove for the
genre was commercially successful. It made eleven million dollars on
a three million dollar budget. It was deeply panned. CX
(18:39):
hated it. Russell Simmons even hated it. Really yeah, it's
been It was a good movie and it wasn't. But
more important for our story is it does that song?
That little moment sets up LL to release his debut
album Radio in nineteen eighty five. It's Deaf Jam's first
full length album release, and it goes platinum. It sells
(19:02):
over half a million copies in five months time.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Hey wow, it is a smash.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
It wow and it includes rock the Bells, and it
includes I Can't Live Without My Radio.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
And LL is immediately a star, just immediately.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
I was going to say, at that point in time,
on any rap albums going platinum.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
There are only four I think platinum albums in the
eighties for rap, and LLLL has two of them, and
this is one of them. So he's one of the first,
which is to say he's a big star already, like nineteen.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Eighty four eighty five, he's had his breakout moment.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
And that brings me to the song I Want to
Talk to You About, which comes from his next album,
his follow up album in nineteen eighty seven. This man
makes a rap ballad, a song.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Called bodied Love.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, yeah, a rap about a love song. It's called
I Need Love.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Do you know this song?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Are you at all familiar?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Writers don't know this song? Maybe once you play it,
I will realize a nerve and film the virus. But
right now I'm drawing a blank.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Well, that's understanding me. So it was I have to say.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
In the UK in the eighties, it becomes controversial and
they hip hop scene, you know, mildly controversial, but there's
some pushback about it before it becomes a massive hit.
But so ell, it's his sophomore album, Bigger and Defer.
As we talked about, I'm Bad is the big single.
It's got these other great albums on it. It's got
this ode to scratching to DJ called Go Cut Creator
(20:36):
Go that's his DJ's name, Cut Creator.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
It's a great song.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
It's got this song called Bristol Hotel, which is kind
of an ode to misogyny, I think.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Is the best way to describe it.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
You know, like it's about having sex with like loose
young women at this stank hotel in Queens. But honestly,
it's so silly and so like performative that you almost
don't hear it that way.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Right, you kind of given benefit of a dot because
it just sounds kind of ridiculous, and.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Right, what says the guy, I don't know, you know,
that's right, you know. But and then and then it
has this ballad.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It's a love song, a rap album, and it's soft
and vulnerable. It starts with like a little piano chime
and then the fans start screaming.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
You hear ladies screaming for him in the background.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
They're not gonna learn in the womb.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Sometimes I'll stare at the.
Speaker 8 (21:31):
Wall and in the back of the don and it
grows confessionalized that like Little dum du Du plays, he
talks about how he's tired of being a player, he's
tired a lion to his girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
He knows he's hurt her feelings, he knows that he
he is ready to be a real lover, a real gentleman.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
It's like I'm here, baby, I'm gonna I mean, this
is the quiet Storm it could have been, you know,
it could have been on on radio alongside like, you know,
Barry met Art, alongside Keith Sweat. He's not kiddy g
He's not a kiddy ge.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Okay, I'm not going to like you see, but it's
but it is more like it's closer to R and
B than rap.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Got It, Got It, Got It, Got It.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
And to be clear, it does become an absolute hit.
But but there is another story that like, I think
says something about ll that I really like around the song.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Right, So later that year it comes out. Later that year,
he's in.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
London for a massive death Jam package tour, and they
think of it as like this is like hip hop
being exported to the world, you.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Know, like that's the way they want people to think
about it, right, And it's got Public Enemy and Eric
B and Rock m and ell is one of the
headliners right right.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
It's kind of seems like reminiscent of like the Motime
review tools. It's like, we're going to bring all these
black artists and take them around the world and display
this news sort of like genre creating here.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
That's exactly right. And then we're doing a lot of
this in hip hop in the eighties too. Like a
first concert I ever got to go to was like
a Fat Boys It was called the fresh Fest, and
I think this was like Freshfest three or something by
the time I was going to go, and it was
like Fat Boys and run DMC and like all the
big acts would roll up in one, you know and take.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Over a stadium and you'd go and like have like
a real.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Hip hop scene because hip hop was still kind of underground,
you know, not underground, but it was an alternative.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
It was a counter culture, and it was a counter culture.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Dominated by young men, young masculine men who were like,
you know, not here for love songs. So they take
this kind of show to London and L's turn comes,
he strides onto the stage all that ll charisma style.
(24:00):
He's got like his like signature fuzzy cagle. He wore
this like furry light cagle hat all around all the time,
and a rope chain, so it's kind of like a
riff on run DMC's kangles and chains, and you know
it's it's in fact, a crowd of mostly young men,
(24:20):
and he chooses instead of rock the bells, instead of
like any of those harder songs, he comes out with
I Need Love and like that little soft tingle piano start,
you know, and he starts his little breathy rhymes about
(24:41):
needing love and not wanting to hurt his lady anymore
and all of this.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Oh he like basically just like I'm in my soft
Boy era.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
And they the crowd is not here for it, like
they are not here for Oh no, they are not
here for it, Like we did not come to hear
soft Boy.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
He did not.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Yeah, And it's like there's a tension. There's a tension,
and then eventually they just start booing him, like they
just boo his ass.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
He is unapologetic in the moment, and he is unapologetic
after it.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
So you know he loves this song and I love
this song.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
And you know, if you go back to also that
nineteen eighty eight interview that the BBC did at his
grandmother's house, you get another part of like, I think,
why he's really into this song? She talks about it. Listen,
listen to her tell the story of how the song
was written.
Speaker 7 (25:33):
I want him always to be respectable and be a
gentleman at all times. I demand that he changed my
life a life because he was quite noisy, and.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
I had to sleepless a lot of sleepless.
Speaker 7 (25:51):
Nights listening to them downstairs. Now, his last album, I
Need Love, it was in.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And he awakened me. It was such gorgeous music.
Speaker 7 (26:05):
And I was in the deadline and I was dancing
be in to bed and I say, damn, Chid, that
is too beautiful to be Instrunou, I said, needs some words.
I said, I can picture myself dancing with a partner
and who's being different things? He who is doing different
things to me? And the next morning Chad came upstairs
(26:28):
with the lyrics.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
I source the whole world, especially girl finally find you
watch a Need Love.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
Wow, it's so sweet, Like I had Grandma dancing afterda.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Is dancing in the bed and telling him how to run.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
But also that okay, that explains hearing her explains so
much like right, if you're growing up in that environment
with those sorts of people around you, and there's that
like I feel like so many other people, it's almost
like there, or at least the way I think I
thought about a lot of rappers from that era is
they're making their music it's all about it's coming from
(27:07):
place of rebellion, you know what I mean. Uh, it's
it's a rejection of sort of like the soft music
of their parents and the vibes of it, and they're.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Going in a much more like like lyrically like real.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Direction, and it's in opposition to and not in conversation
with people in I can't imagine anybody from NWA playing this.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Getting writing tips from their parents, you know, how to
fuck the policy which is not to say anything about
all of that other music, but it is like in
defense of l ELL's corniness, you know, because it's a
whole different kind of idea about manhood that he's performing
(27:56):
and describing.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
It's also just like I was just thinking about other
rappers that we hold up right, and I feel like
for most of them, it's like the arc is kind
of flipped, so it's like they start making really hard
music and then eventually they kind of grow up and
then start paying almost to their mothers and music and
making so kind of love.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I mean, ice Cube is now in kids movies.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yes, of a w a of fuck the Police, of
like many many different graphic ways to kill a man
is yet free, yeah, so you know whereas l Is
still has a serious exempt channel that is a giant
(28:40):
wet love kiss to hip hop. He has a really
great serious exempt channel where Roxane Chante has a drive
time show right that is like three hours of like
old school and new school hip hop. He has a
YouTube thing where him and a DJ do this badass
like it's called Salute the Sample where they do this
(29:02):
etymology of samples and they go through and they're like,
this little piece of music here, you know, the play
it in LL identify it and he'll, like the djil'll
start telling you, like the different where it came from,
in all the different ways it's been used in LL
is just like freestyling a music history over the.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Top of it.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
This man knows music, and sometimes we'll break into freestyle
and it's good. Like he's not in some kids film,
you know, right, so you know who was the real
hip hop er here, But you know also.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
He on all of this.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
What you're hearing, right is like we're both connecting to
his sort of just presenting a different idea of manhood
and a different.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Idea of masculinity that did not escape my attention as
a teenager that was his peer in the eighties. And
just as a little bit of a PostScript, I want
to tell you about that after the break.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Welcome Back, Big Lives, we are talking about LL cool J,
and now actually we're going to talk about me and
my relationship.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
To col J.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Okay, okay, you know I said at the beginning of
this manuel that this one's kind of personal in particular
the I Need Love song, and uh, there's a lot
about LL that you know, I was a teenager in
the eighties, right, So while he was living out this
teenage stuff, I was living in alongside him and.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Taken notes and some of that led to some pretty
cringe behavior.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
So who among us?
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Who among us? But mine has involved LL a lot.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
So one of the most horrifying moments in my memory
of myself occurred when I was in Uh I think, well,
I need.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Love, had to be out. So it's nineteen eighty seven,
so I was at this point, I was a freshman
in high school. Oh my god, I can't believe it
was that late. I couldn't be.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Maybe it was the summer before that. I hope maybe
I was at least like fourteen or something. I'm there
is a young woman, her name is Lisa. I'm not
going to give her whole name because she should be
left out of this. Who was at my church who
I was trying desperately to tell myself that I was
in love with, Okay, because I am a homosexual, and
(31:37):
I did not. I was not in touch with that
about myself at the time. I was really really invested in, like,
I need a girlfriend. Everybody else is getting a girlfriend,
everybody else is falling in love.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I gotta fall in love. I have decided it's Lisa.
And back in the day, you know, when you fell
in love with somebody, you made mixtapes, got it, you know?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
So I just I there was this moment where I
was it was this, Yeah, it was the summer because
I was at my grandmother's house in Alabama, and I
had these two little tape recorders.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
And I.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
Recorded myself saying, I don't remember what, but some corny
ash shit to poor Lisa.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Oh wow, before teeing up.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I need love.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Inspired by this song by all of his vulnerability. Like
the other young guys are like, I need love. That's
a chump song.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
I'm like, that's exactly the song I need to express
my love. I'm glad that you're calling it that it is.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
I mean the fact that you made a mixtape that's
sweet about you, like took your time to record. I
can only imagine what you recorded. It's me kai just
leaving this for you. It makes me think of you.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
And then you have.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
I really shrink in my chair and I sent it
to her, and I have to assume she just never responded,
because I don't have any memory of what came out.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
That could be two things happened. Never responded, you have
you repressed it.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
You don't want to go there, but you know, it
was all part of like throughout from then on, I
was trying so hard. I was I was just preoccupied
with trying to figure out how to appropriately be a man,
right because everybody around me who was doing it, they
(33:49):
were cool and calm and collect all the things you
know that you're supposed to be, you know. And I
was so sentimental and I tried so hard at everything.
I was like lll like I could just see like right,
And I couldn't have told you this at the time,
(34:09):
but there was something about him I was really drawn to.
And I think it was because he was performing something
that was more accessible to me, where I was allowed
to be a tryhard and I was allowed to be sentimental.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I was.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
I remember this moment I played football right like, and
I don't want to disavow playing. I was terrible at it, obviously,
this gay kid running around playing football. The coach told
me I should have played track instead, you know. Yeah,
I was better at conditioning than playing football.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
But I remember this moment where the coach quit right
like you.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
It called him meeting, you know, gathered around, and he
announced he's quitting. He was going to a bigger, better school.
And I burst into tears right.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Like, I'm sobbing right because I think it's a big.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
In sentimental most in a moment, but I look around
the room, and I'm only person.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Crying, Oh wow, yeah, yeah, everyone, what's this guy?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
What's up with the gay guy?
Speaker 3 (35:08):
But I had so many moments like that, you know,
And I just think LL was carving out space I
want to believe, for others, certainly for me. And I
can think about it now in retrospect, maybe more than
it was at the time. But I just think he
was presenting a kind of masculinity that.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
We just need more of, you know, like we.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Just need more space for that. We certainly needed more
space for that in the eighties. We certainly needed more
space for that in black culture in the eighties. And
I love LL because he was providing it. And I
have to say one last thing, Yeah, is I feel
years later, I felt kind of vindicated about all this
(35:56):
because so my partner of twenty years, you know, who
is a legendary dork in his own right.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
I mean, he is just behind LL. His ownership of
Corny a white man, I must say, from the Midwest.
When we met.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
One of the first things that made me be like,
I want to know this guy. We hooked up, we
had sex in the middle of the night. We didn't
know each other, right.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
You know, but The next day.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
He emailed me and his email handle was ll cool
Jed because his name is Jed and his AOL handle
had been ll Colts.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Back at AOL, his AIM handle had been ll cool jed.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
He to this day I only email him to his
email address that's his LL cool jed.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
That's incredible. That's incredible. Honestly, listen, it sounds like LLO
cool j was.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
Yeah, he was a real model for you, but also
he followed your path to follow that that did lead
you to love.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
That did lead me to love. Right, So if I
just think about that mixtape.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
For Lisa, I actually sent it emotionally to Jed like
thirty years beforehand is basically let happen.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Wow, that's really beautiful.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Well, thank you for affirming me, and nobody send me
hate mail about this.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
Now.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Listen the ladies, the men to we love you.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
We love you, Kai, Well, that was the point of
all this. Thanks for saying, Okay, then I've done that.
So who do you got from me next week? Emmanuel?
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Well, I can't wait to pay these for you, because
I do feel like this is one where you would
know exactly who it is the moment you hear the
voice okay, but don't give it away to listeners. Okay,
so I'm going to pay you this first clip.
Speaker 9 (37:55):
It's important to grab his tail as soon as you
grab his head, otherwise he will rap his great coils
round you won't give you a very nasty squeeze.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
I actually don't recognize the voice, but really, context clues
are quite strong for me in this.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I do if it's who I think it is. I
enjoy this man, but I can't I could actually couldn't
say for sure yet.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Okay, okay, well, let me play you another one.
Speaker 9 (38:21):
One of the most popular programs at the time was
was showing animals, live animals on live television, and it
was terrifically popular because the animals always bit people or
wet down people's fronts, or escaped and jumped on the
microphone boom, that sort of thing, which was tremendous.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Now I know the voice. This is great, what a
great idea, This is great.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
Okay, just in case you are at home when you
really still don't know, we'll play one more for you, guys.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
There's more.
Speaker 10 (38:50):
Meaning, and we lived to an understanding. In the gorilla,
it's an animal, I know, what's that similar. We see
the world in the same way as they.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Do the whisper in particular guy you know, but I
feel like it's this is a very specific genre of
television viewer who immediately knows who this guy is.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
And I'm in it.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Wow, not you ending this by calling me a nud
but yes, yes, in fact, that's.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
My time where you're doing so. But me too, I'm
owning myself. We're both in it.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Well, we will both know it out next week.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Big Lives is a production of BBC Studios in Pushkin Industries.
It's hosted by me Kai Wright and Emmanuel Joji from
BBC Studios.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Our producer is Emma Weatherill.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Our archive producer is Samira Childream executive producer.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Is Annie Brown.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
The sound designer is Melvin Ricaby, production coordinator is Galen
Davis Connolly, and production manager is Mabel Finnegan Wright from
Pushkin Industries. Our executive producer is Constanza Gayato, producer Daphne Chen,
legal advisor Jake Flanagan, and marketing by Morgan Ratner and
Jordan Vick Millen.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Get add free.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
Episodes of Big Lives by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Subscribers
also get ad free episodes of all Pushkin shows, full
audio books, series binges to shows like deep Cover and Revision,
This History and more. Sign up on the Big Live
Show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm,
slash plus.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Thanks for your support.
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.