LL Cool J on Protesting Social Injustice While Running a Business

How have recent events affected you as a Black man in America?

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- I’m encouraged by so many people that are on the right side of history and looking at these times in the right way. And it has gotten better over the years, and it will continue to get better. But better doesn’t always mean good enough, I think. But the best is yet to come.

How would you describe the role of hip-hop at such a critical time?

Hip-hop has always been at the forefront of social justice, whether it’s songs I made like Illegal Search, or you have Public Enemy or Ice Cube. So many artists have done such a great job in that area. I think hip-hop has always been at the forefront.

Your Black Lives Matter freestyle went viral a couple of months ago. What compelled you to do it?

I felt like people had to know where I stand. Me being successful in America, a lot of times people try to point and say, “See, there’s no racism.” But I’m an anomaly. I’m not the rule. And I can’t allow the things that have gone well in my life to cause me to forget or pretend that there aren’t other people that are really being treated unjustly.

You started with Rock the Bells Radio in 2018 on SiriusXM and expanded to a platform with content and merchandise. What made you see this as an opportunity to build something for classic hip-hop?

Generation X has $2.4 trillion in spending power. A huge portion of Generation X are huge classic and timeless hip-hop fans. And they’ve been ignored, basically. In doing Rock the Bells on SiriusXM, I learned a lot about what Generation X was missing when it comes to hip-hop.

People are so focused on the millennial audience, which I have no problem with, but they’re so focused on artists that appeal to the millennial audience that they forgot about the LL Cool Js and the Run‐DMCs and the Beastie Boys and the Eric B. & Rakims and the Big Daddy Kanes and the Salt-N-Pepas and the Queen Latifahs, the early Eminem and Dr. Dre.

And here’s the beauty of it. Because we appeal to Generation X so much, they’re introducing Gen Z to what we’re doing. So we actually overindex with Gen Z without trying or chasing. So I just found out that Generation X was starving for something, and I knew that classic hip-hop is a big part of it, because classic hip-hop gives you the underpinnings of all pop culture.

So what we have is we have three pillars: content, commerce, and the community, or experiential. And the content, we tell the stories. With the commerce, we have a curated shop. It’s not like some superstore. It’s a curated shop with all things closely connected to hip-hop. And then we have our experiential, which will come in due time, post-Covid.

Are there any concerns about whether your speaking out may deter future investors or turn away some fans or customers?

We don’t demonize, and we don’t try to point fingers and say, “You’re all bad,” and paint with a really broad brush. So it’s not like you can never get a negative rub rocking with LL Cool J or rocking with Rock the Bells. But it comes from a place of truth. And we’re speaking to the goodness and the righteousness in human beings. We’re speaking from the POV of a company that’s been there and that’s immersed deeply in this culture and understands what the community has been going through. So, no, I’m not concerned with that.

Edited for space and clarity.

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