The legendary rapper recently released his fourteenth album, poweras its flagship brand celebrates 40 years.
Almost 25 years After becoming the first to declare himself Goat (Which his dancers referred to as farm animal posters) LL Cool J reminded us he deserves that title at the MTV Video Music Awards on Wednesday night. In between classics like “Around the Way Girl” and “Doin’ It,” he performed “Passion” and “Proclivities” from his recently released 14th studio album, powerAnother acronym, this time for True Creative Energy Frequencies.
LL was introduced by Busta Rhymes, who cheekily instructed fans to “put your hands where my eyes can see” while explaining that his labelmate was the first artist to release an album on the iconic hip-hop label Def J, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. His Def Jam labelmates Flavor Flav and Public Enemy’s Chuck D also reunited for “Bring the Noise.”
Last year, LL Cool J performed at the 50th Anniversary Video Music Awards, performing a medley of “I’m Bad” and “Mama Said Knock You Out.” It was his first time performing at the awards show in a quarter century.
In 1997, the rapper became the first hip-hop artist to be honored by MTV with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. The honor was presented by Mariah Carey. He first won the Moon Person Award in 1991 in the Best Rap Video category for the song “Mama Said Knock You Out,” which he also performed at the awards show.
Other artists set to perform at this year's VMAs include Megan Thee Stallion, Lenny Kravitz, Sabrina Carpenter, Shawn Mendes and Chappelle Rowan. The most nominated artists are Taylor Swift and Post Malone.
