Def Jam artists "Karina" & "LL CooL J" performed a free show for listeners of V-103 on Friday Night. With rapper, actor, & movie star "LL CooL J" as the obvious headliner, it all went down at Center Stage on West Peachtree Street to a enthusiasticly large & mostly female audience. Newcomer "Karina" was rather impressive debuting as a young up & coming singer on Def Jam records at only 17 years of age. The girl can sing in seven different languages & also plays the piano. Of course she didn't sing in all seven of those languages last night, but she still did her thing nonetheless. Overwhelmingly the person everyone wanted to see was clearly Mr. James Todd Smith. LL ran through a number of songs in his lengthy catalog to the screams of the various girls & women in attendance at the event. We could have sworn that we even saw grandmothers in there wanting to lick LL's lips. We also noticed WSB news reporter Jaquitta Williams at times try to even hold her own composure during the show, but she also fell victim to the excitement & energy in the place as the muscular hip hop veteran performed. Most of the brothaz like us who grew up on LL miss the more lyrical side of James Todd Smith as his music in this later part of his career has been more geared to the ladies. It's not exactly cool to be driving up the block blasting LL's new single "Baby" featuring The Dream without getting a number of stares from people thinking you're "Fugazi". It's a good song, but not something most dudes would ride to. LL released a great mixtape he dropped earlier this year with DJ KaySlay that made successful attempts to draw back in some of his male listeners. We asked LL if he was going to continue to drop more mixtapes for his male fans that want less "lovey dovey" fair, but more raw or edgier material. LL stated because of the mixtape he had some ideas to further take advantage of it's success.
"You know man I thought of that because of the response on the mixtape. I was thinking of incorporating a number of the mixtape songs into some of my shows" said LL COOL J. LL did indeed perform a new song that night which sounded similar to 50 Cent's "I Get Money", called "You Better Watch me." Much later in the evening long after we had left the venue, we were in the car listening to DJ Premier's satellite radio show on Sirius satellite channel 40 when the same song debuted on the air. It was definitely a song we felt comfortable with while driving down the street banging out the car stereo system. Regardless, LL is definitely a legend even if he cannot get many of his male fans back on board and no one can take that legendary status away from him.
Download "Baby" by LL Cool J featuring Dream Check out LL performing his new single "You Better Watch me" off of his upcoming album entitled "Exit 13"
