The Grammy Awards Show aired last night. It was more like a concert of lots of different types of popular music happily and so willing to sing and dance their heart away. Sadly the only real representation of great rock music was when literally an old man with a hat turned out great AC DC music that was at the very beginning of the show before you could even settle in to hear and see 3 hours more of entertainers. I guess the old rock group had to get back to the home early. Also refreshing was that LL Cool J didn’t speak much at all this year. Who is that guy anyway?

He stars in a TV rough them up show called NCIS LA a CBS show. He is also an actor, rapper and 4^th time host of the 57^th Annual Grammy Awards. One thing for sure he has self confidence in whatever he decides to do. He was in the 1989 movie called going Back To Cali as a rap star. In 1999 in the movie Any Given Sunday he was an actor playing with the likes of Al Pacino. Now he is a TV star in NCIS. In 1992 he won 2 of his own Grammy’s. He was born being called James Todd Smith in Queens, New York. As a child he saw his father shoot his mother who recovered but after that he was raised by his grandparents.

When he was 11 years old, his grandfather gave him a $2,000 DJ Turntable system mostly to keep him off the streets and in the house safely. In the early 1980’s rap was just beginning to take hold on everyone’s boom box to the ear. Thus his new rapper name Ladies Love Cool Jay’s. He just couldn’t wait for the ladies to love him.  He went after the record label  Def Jam Recordings at age 16 and after sending them tapes and calling them all the time got signed up to a contract.  His persistence paid off again when a friend invited him to see a film being made called Krush Crook . He did not have a part in the movie but he got his SAG card by being walk in’s all over the movie. He was the guy in the background walking with a broom or lifting crates and then dancing in the sidelines. He did whatever to be in that movie.  

He now had a career as an actor and rapper. In the 1999 movie called Deep Blue Sea, he is swimming with sharks. He knew his wife Simone Johnson from the old neighborhood and eventually married her. They got married in 1995 and have 4 children. He keeps up with his roots in Queens by going back to the old neighborhood for the past 12 years and sponsoring a basketball tournament. At 47 years old, LL Cool J is a hit weather he is working with kids , or actors, or musicians, he is there in the mix.