It’s a far cry from the streets of Queens, N.Y., to the stage at the Kennedy Center, but that’s the path that James Todd Smith — better known as LL Cool J — has taken.
LL Cool J, who started his career as a rap artist as a teenager and now stars in the CBS series “NCIS: Los Angeles,” has appeared in scores of films and television shows, and in 2017 was the first rap musician to receive a Kennedy Center Honor for lifetime artistic achievement.
But while his accomplishments are many and varied, he hasn’t forgotten his roots.
On Tuesday, LL Cool J will launch Rock the Bells limited-edition apparel and accessories, a collection of T-shirts, hoodies and jackets that speaks to the heritage of the hip-hop movement.
Rock the Bells was the title of a hit song in 1986 that the entertainer has parlayed into a number of arenas, including a classic hip-hop channel on SiriusXM satellite radio that launched in 2018.
“We’d been trying to get the station going for five years,” he told WWD after wrapping the day’s shooting on the set of “NCIS: Los Angeles.” But since the station made its debut two years ago, “it blew up,” he said. “We realized that classic hip-hop had not been presented to fans in an authentic way and realized that they wanted more.”
That also translates into their apparel with many fans of the music seeking out authentic reinterpretations of the looks that defined the original hip-hop era.
LL Cool J said Drop 1, which will be offered on the Rock the Bells’ web site starting Jan. 28, will reference the four pillars of hip-hop: graffiti, DJs, breaking, or break dancing, and MCs, the rappers who put the musical genre on the map. “We’re staying true to where the culture came from, but reimagined for now,” he said.
“When I recorded Rock the Bells in 1986, my heroes were people who embraced and lived the four elements of hip-hop. Drop 1 honors that spirit, while looking through the lens of current culture.”
The actor sporting the varsity jacket.
He said the collection was created by the Rock the Bells team, “but we give the culture the real credit for the design,” he said. “It’s true and real and we really lived it.”
Each piece has a story, such as the Fat Cap T-shirt, which refers to the larger caps graffiti artists borrowed from oven cleaners to get a wider arc for their spray-painted creations. The shiny medallions worn by Kurtis Blow, Big Daddy Kane and Slick Rick are used on hoodies.