Why was LL Cool J able to stay relevant in music way longer than his 1980’s rap peers?

[Street Knowledge]

Basically everyone listed his acting career as a secondary factor not the main reason. But you seriously underestimating how big a deal it was in the 90s to have your face on millions of TV screens across the country 20 times a year for half a decade. And in movie theaters on top of that. There's a reason labels spent millions to get artists into the public consciousness and promoted the hell out of hip hop soundtracks associated with big Hollywood movies.

Far as Cube he dropped albums in 2000 and 2006 that both went gold. LL never did more than gold in the 00s and his last gold album was also 2006. LL had bigger singles but Cube's albums did just as well.

I agree I was just trolling

 

[The Amerikkkan Idol]

He was not a big star in movies, if he was a big star what was will smith

So the only way to be a big star is to be the biggest star in the world, which Will Smith was for a while there?

Look LL was a dependable supporting character in a ton of movies & TV shows for a while there.

He's recognizable to most of y'alls grandmas and mamas, which makes him a big star.

Ice cube was in movies the same time LL was, where was his top 30 records in the 00’s?


Exactly

Ice Cube wasn't really chasing that by the early 2000s.

Cube has stayed mostly wedded to his politica/gangsta style that's served him his whole career.

I actually respect him a lot for that reason.

He never made corny ass pop records.

LL was always a sex symbol, so he could do records with J. Lo & people like that which helped him stay in a mainstream lane.

I don't think those movie roles helped LL remain relevant. I mean, look at Queen Latifah. Similar acting career, and possibly bigger, yet that didn't translate to her selling records or remaining relevant musically.

Queen Latifah isn't really interested in being a musician or at least a Hip-Hop musician anymore.

She wasn't out there chasing Hip-Hop relevance

I wish she would.

She dropped a diss track a few years ago, that was

 

[JustCKing]

Queen Latifah had two gold albums her whole career, one dropped in 1993, the other in 2004. Doubt the second one happen without her acting career.

The other one was a Jazz album. She was dropping albums throughout her acting career and only two of them were certified.