LL Cool J relearned ‘how to rap’ on his first album in 11 years, ‘The FORCE.’ Here’s how

By Maria Sherman | Word In Black FILE – LL Cool J performs during the MTV Video Music Awards in Newark, N.J., on Sept. 12, 2023. The rapper-actor will release “The F.O.R.C.E.,” his first album in 11 years. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File) NEW YORK (AP) — The Grammy award winning rapper-actor- author LL COOL J will release his first new album in 11 years, “The FORCE” in September — 40 years into his hip-hop career. Not that he hasn’t been making music in that time. “I’ve always tinkered around in the studio here and there,” he told The Associated Press over Zoom. But over the last two or so years, inspiration really struck. He started working with a producer and pursuing music-making more seriously. Then he hit a roadblock. “I just felt like the tracks that this producer was giving me were better than the songs that I was writing,” he said. Then the late Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest came to him in a dream. “He told me, ‘Yo, man, that new music you’re working on is great, man.’ But he had a look on his face like a Cheshire cat, like he was lying to...