Artist · chart history · #620 in indie & aaa artist polls
LL Cool J
Solo artist Bay Shore United States
LL Cool J is an artist from Bay Shore. LL Cool J has 14 chart appearances on 13 radio countdowns from 9 stations on RockLists, spanning 1991–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Mama Said Knock You Out”, which appears on 7 lists with a best position of #216. The station that charted LL Cool J most often is The Colorado Sound (Fort Collins–Denver, CO), with 4 appearances.
LL Cool J, born James Todd Smith in 1968, took his name from a boast, Ladies Love Cool James, and spent a career backing it up. Def Jam signed him in 1984, "I Need a Beat" broke him that same year, and his debut album, Radio, followed in 1985. Alongside Run-DMC he was one of the first rappers to cross over and sell in a big way, and he had the range for it: hard, cocky b-boy anthems like "Rock the Bells", "I'm Bad" and "Going Back to Cali" on one side, slow-jam love songs like "I Need Love" on the other.
Bigger and Deffer and Walking with a Panther kept him on top, and Mama Said Knock You Out, in 1990, is where he came out swinging, the title track a snarling, bass-heavy haymaker from a man with something to prove. Mr. Smith and Phenomenon carried him through the later '90s, with "Around the Way Girl", "Doin' It", "Loungin" and "Hey Lover" working the smoother side of the street. He won the Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance in 1992 and again in 1997.
Exit 13, his twelfth album, closed out his Def Jam contract in 2008, though he went back to the label for The FORCE in 2024. Hollywood claimed him along the way, from Deep Blue Sea and Any Given Sunday to Sam Hanna on NCIS: Los Angeles. In 2017 he became the first rapper to receive the Kennedy Center Honors, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him in 2021.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by LL Cool J on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mama Said Knock You Out | 7 | #216 | – | – | |
| 2 | Goin' Back To Cali | 3 | #42 | – | – | |
| 3 | I Can't Live Without My Radio | 2 | #643 | – | – | |
| 4 | Radio | 1 | #310 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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