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The return of LL Cool J, the rapper
Walking in the St. Albans neighborhood of Queens, New York, LL Cool J said, “I love this hood, man. Love this neighborhood. Love everything about it. Love the energy. I made a name for myself rappin’ around here.”
LL Cool J is still a neighborhood hero here. Forty years after his first record, he is a walking embodiment of hip-hop history, which doesn’t mean he’s retired. Last week, at the MTV Video Music Awards, he celebrated his extraordinary track record.
LL Cool J performs at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards:
Asked what he thinks has kept people interested in his work for so many years, he replied, “I just continuously do what I love. And I know an apple tree keeps giving fruit, an orange tree keeps giving fruit, until it’s gone. So, I just keep giving.”
His career began in his childhood bedroom, in the basement of his grandmother’s house in Queens. “You’re in the museum,” he said. “You in Graceland, baby.”
He still has boxes filled with old demo tapes, and handwritten rhymes. For him, this was his artist’s studio. “I wrote ‘Rock The Bells’ down here. I wrote ‘I Need Love’ down here. I wrote ‘I’m Bad,’ like, in the car and down here.”
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He said this basement was the place where dreams come true. As a boy, James Todd Smith also saw this basement as a refuge.
Sanneh asked, “I think a lot of people who experience what you experienced – you’ve seen your father shoot your mother, you get abuse from your mother’s ex-boyfriend, you go through these really difficult things – don’t come out of it the way you came out of it.”
“Yeah. You know, life is funny,” said LL. “You can use things as an excuse for failure, or a reason to succeed. When my mother was shot, they told us they didn’t think she’d walk again. She walked again.
“Using the things that happen in your life to propel you towards your dreams is probably the healthiest way to deal with anything that happens,” he said.
He was largely raised by his grandparents. They bought him turntables to keep him in the house (and out of trouble). It was a more important gift than they could have imagined. “It really was just wanting to escape pain,” he said. “It was an escape, you know what I’m saying? And so, the music became, like, a way to feel empowered.”
LL Cool J (short for “Ladies Love Cool James”) started writing rhymes and recorded a demo tape, and in 1984, the right person found it. Adam Horovitz, known as Ad Rock from the Beastie Boys, was friends with producer Rick Rubin, who had just started his record label, Def Jam. “I would just kind of go through demo tapes,” Horovitz said. “Something about [LL] just sounded really cool. I don’t know, he sounded interesting.”
Horovitz convinced Rubin to listen to him; and he remembers when LL came by to meet them: “So, a teenager walks in and he’s like, ‘I’m LL Cool J. And the LL stands for Ladies Love Cool James.’ And you’re just, you know, a high school kid? The ladies love you? Okay, all right. If you say so! He was real confident, and he should have been. He was really good at what he did.
“He is a force, but I never would have predicted that LL Cool J would be what he is now, never,” Horovitz said. “LL’s personality, his inner light, like, shines. It really does.”
Horovitz helped produce LL Cool J’s first single, “I Need a Beat.”
That track got LL a record deal, although you might say it got the record company an LL deal; he was the first artist ever signed to Def Jam Recordings.
Getting the deal, LL said, “felt like Christmas, honeymoon, hitting the lottery, jumping out of an airplane, a roller coaster, all at once. it was the best feeling in the world. Best feeling in the WORLD, getting that deal!”
LL Cool J became one of the first major hip-hop stars. Hits like “Going Back to Cali” and “Mama Said Knock You Out” blazed a trail for other rappers to follow.
And in 1987, he pioneered a new tradition: the hip-hop love song, with “I Need Love.”
His music career turned into a career in film, and then on television: For 14 seasons, he played special agent Sam Hanna on “NCIS: Los Angeles,” which mainly kept him away from the recording studio. “I thought the show would last two years and it’d be done,” he said. “I had no idea that ‘NCIS’ would be so huge. And I’m very grateful. I had a great time doing it. But you can’t be a part-time MC. You can’t really be a part-time musician. There’s no such thing.”
Now 56, LL Cool J is returning to the thing he loves most: rapping. He recently released his first album in more than a decade, “The Force,” which includes appearances from Eminem and other rappers who grew up listening to him.
You can stream the LL Cool J album “The Force” by clicking on the embed below (Free Spotify registration required to hear the tracks in full):
He says there’s still something magical about making a hip-hop record: “My job is to go into a room and paint on silence, and then say, ‘Listen to this.’ Like, it’s easy to sit around and judge it or say, ‘That album was better than that album.’ But can you go in a room, paint on silence, present it to the world, and have them enjoy it? Can you do that?”
LL Cool J says he’s still having fun making music, which doesn’t mean he doesn’t want people to pay attention. “I love the idea that you’re talking to a hip hop artist in Year 40, and his record is relevant and impacting the culture,” he said.
“They were talking about it on the radio this morning,” said Sanneh.
“I love it,” he laughed. “I love it. I love it. Because you know why? Not only for me, I love it for future generations. I love that they get to see, ‘Oh, I can keep doing what I love?’ Yeah!”
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Story produced by Robbyn McFadden. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
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Bangkok — A 64-year-old woman was preparing to do her evening dishes at her home outside Bangkok when she felt a sharp pain in her thigh and looked down to see a huge python taking hold of her.
“I was about to scoop some water and when I sat down it bit me immediately,” Arom Arunroj told Thailand’s Thairath newspaper. “When I looked I saw the snake wrapping around me.”
The 13-to-16-foot-long python coiled itself around her torso, squeezing her down to the floor of her kitchen.
“I grabbed it by the head, but it wouldn’t release me,” she said. “It only tightened.”
Kunyakit Thanawtchaikun/AP
Pythons are non-venomous constrictors, which kill their prey by gradually squeezing the breath out of it.
Propped up against her kitchen door, she cried for help but it wasn’t until a neighbor happened to be walking by about an hour and a half later and heard her screams that authorities were called.
Responding police officer Anusorn Wongmalee told The Associated Press on Thursday that when he arrived the woman was still leaning against her door, looking exhausted and pale, with the snake coiled around her.
Police and animal control officers used a crowbar to hit the snake on the head until it released its grip and slithered away before it could be captured.
In all, Arom spent about two hours on Tuesday night in the clutches of the python before being freed.
She was treated for several bites but appeared to be otherwise unharmed in videos of her talking to Thai media shortly after the incident.
Encounters with snakes are not uncommon in Thailand, and last year 26 people were killed by venomous snake bites, according to government statistics. A total of 12,000 people were treated for venomous bites by snakes and other animals 2023.
The reticulated python is the largest snake found in Thailand and usually ranges in size from 5 to 21 feet, weighing up to about 165 pounds. They have been found as big as 33 feet long and 287 pounds.
Smaller pythons feed on small mammals such as rats, but larger snakes switch to prey such as pigs, deer and even domestic dogs and cats. Attacks on humans are not common, though do happen occasionally.
There have also been fatal attacks in Indonesia, where a woman was found inside the belly of a reticulated python that swallowed her whole in June — the fifth person to be devoured by one of the snakes in the country since 2017.
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After Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating, Memphis officer texted photo of bloodied man to ex-girlfriend, she testifies
A former Memphis police officer charged in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols sent his ex-girlfriend a photo of the badly injured man on the night he was punched, kicked and hit with a police baton following a traffic stop, according to trial testimony Wednesday.
Brittany Leake, a Memphis officer and Demetrius Haley’s former girlfriend, testified during the criminal trial that she was on the phone with Haley when officers pulled Nichols over for a traffic stop. She said she heard a “commotion,” including verbal orders for someone to give officers his hands.
The call ended, but Haley later texted the photo in a group chat comprising Haley, Leake and her godsister, she testified. Prosecutors displayed the photo for the jury. It showed Nichols with his eyes closed, on the ground with what appeared to be blood near his mouth and his hands behind his back.
Leake said that when she saw the photo, her reaction was: “Oh my God, he definitely needs to go to the Med.”
The Med is shorthand for Memphis’ trauma hospital.
The fatal beating, caught on police bodycams and street surveillance cameras, has sparked protests and calls for police reform. Officers said they pulled over Nichols for reckless driving, but Memphis’ police chief said there was no evidence to substantiate that claim.
Haley, Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith are on trial after pleading not guilty to charges that they deprived Nichols of his civil rights through excessive force and failure to intervene, and obstructed justice through witness tampering. Their trial began Sept. 9 and is expected to run three to four weeks.
George Walker IV / AP
The Memphis Police Department fired the three men, along with Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., after Nichols’ death. The beating was caught on police video, which was released publicly. The officers were later indicted on the federal charges. Martin and Mills have taken plea deals.
During her testimony Wednesday, Leake said she deleted the photo after she saw it and that sending such a photo is against police policy.
“I wasn’t offended, but it was difficult to look at,” she said.
Leake said Haley had sent her photos before of drugs, and of a person who had been injured in a car accident.
Earlier Wednesday, Martin was on the witness stand for a third day. Defense attorneys tried to show inconsistencies between Martin’s statements to investigators and his court testimony. Martin acknowledged lying about what happened to Memphis Police Department internal investigators, to try to cover up and “justify what I did.”
But Martin said he told the truth to FBI investigators after he pleaded guilty in August, including statements about feeling pressure on his duty belt where his gun was located during the traffic stop, but not being able to see if Nichols was trying to get his gun. Martin has testified that he said “let go of my gun” during the traffic stop.
Martin Zummach, the attorney for Justin Smith, asked Martin if he knew of any reasons why Nichols did not simply say, “I give up.”
“He’s out of it,” Martin said. “Disoriented.”
Martin testified that the situation escalated quickly when Haley pulled his gun and violently yanked Nichols from his car, using expletives and failing to tell Nichols why he had been pulled over and removed from the vehicle.
“He never got a chance to comply,” Martin said.
Nichols, who was Black, was pepper sprayed and hit with a stun gun during the traffic stop, but ran away, police video shows. The five officers, who also are Black, then beat him about a block from his home, as he called out for his mother.
Video shows the officers milling about and talking as Nichols struggled with his injuries. Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating.
An autopsy report shows Nichols – the father of a boy who is now 7 – died from blows to the head. The report describes brain injuries, and cuts and bruises on his head and elsewhere on his body.
Jesse Guy testified that he was working as a paramedic for the Memphis Fire Department the night of the beating. He arrived at the location after two emergency medical technicians, Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge.
Guy said he was not told about the medical problems Nichols had experienced before he arrived, and that Nichols was injured, seated on the ground and unresponsive.
Nichols had no pulse and was not breathing, and it “felt like he was lifeless,” Guy said.
In the ambulance, Guy performed CPR and provided mechanical ventilation, and Nichols had a pulse by the time he arrived at the hospital, the paramedic said.
Guy said Long and Sandridge did not say if they had checked Nichols’ pulse and heart rate, and they did not report if they had given him oxygen. When asked by one of Bean’s lawyers whether that information would have been helpful in treating Nichols, Guy said yes.
Long and Sandridge were fired for violating fire department policies after Nichols died. They have not been criminally charged.
The five officers also have been charged with second-degree murder in state court, where they pleaded not guilty. Mills and Martin are expected to change their pleas.
Federal prosecutors have previously recommended a 40-year sentence for Martin. A date has not been set in state court yet.
Nichols worked for FedEx, and he enjoyed skateboarding and photography. The city of Sacramento, where Nichols grew up, named a skatepark in his honor. “Tyre fell in love with skateboarding at a young age and it wasn’t long before it became a part of his lifestyle,” states the resolution approved by the city council. He had a tattoo of his mother’s name.
“Tyre Nichols’ family have been praying for justice and accountability from the very beginning of this tragedy,” Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, the civil rights attorneys representing Nichols’ family, said in a statement when the trial began.
Boeing’s CEO said Wednesday that the company will begin furloughing “a large number” of employees to conserve cash during the strike by union machinists that began last week.
Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg said the people who would be required to take time off without pay starting in coming days include executives, managers and other employees based in the U.S.
“While this is a tough decision that impacts everybody, it is in an effort to preserve our long-term future and help us navigate through this very difficult time,” Ortberg said in a company-wide message to staff.
Boeing didn’t say how many people will face rolling furloughs, but the number is expected to run into the tens of thousands. The aerospace giant had 171,000 employees at the start of the year.
About 33,000 Boeing factory workers in the Pacific Northwest began a strike Friday after rejecting a proposal to raise pay by 25% over four years. They want raises of at least 40%, the return of a traditional pension plan and other improvements in the contract offer they voted down.
Scott Brauer / Bloomberg via Getty Images
The strike is halting production of several airplane models including Boeing’s best-selling plane, the 737 Max. The company gets more than half of the purchase price when new planes are delivered to buyers, so the strike will quickly hurt Boeing’s cash flow.
Ortberg said selected employees will be furloughed for one week every four weeks while retaining their benefits. The CEO and other senior executives will take pay cuts during the duration of the strike, he said, without stating how deep the cuts will be.
All work related to safety, quality, customer support and certification of new planes will continue during the furloughs, he said, including production of 787 Dreamliner jets, which are built by nonunion workers in South Carolina.
Ortberg said in a memo to employees that the company is talking to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers about a new contract agreement that could be ratified.
“However, with production paused across many key programs in the Pacific Northwest, our business faces substantial challenges and it is important that we take difficult steps to preserve cash and ensure that Boeing is able to successfully recover,” he said.
Boeing’s chief financial officer warned employees earlier this week that temporary layoffs were possible.
The company, which is based in Arlington, Virginia, but has most of its commercial-airplanes business located in the Pacific Northwest, is also cutting spending on suppliers, freezing hiring and eliminating most travel.
Despite two full days of talks assisted by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the union said Wednesday that no resolution had been reached and no additional negotiations were scheduled, according to CBS Seattle affiliate KIRO-TV.
Striking workers are picketing at several locations in the Seattle area, Oregon and California. The union, which recommended the offer that members later rejected by a 96% vote, is surveying the workers to learn what they want in a new contract. The union’s last strike at Boeing, in 2008, lasted about two months.
If the walkout doesn’t end soon, Boeing’s credit rating could be downgraded to non-investment or junk status, which would make borrowing more expensive. Shortly after the walkout began Friday, Moody’s put Boeing on review for a possible downgrade, and Fitch said a strike longer than two weeks would make a downgrade more likely.
Python squeezes Thai woman in her kitchen for 2 hours before she’s rescued by police
After Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating, Memphis officer texted photo of bloodied man to ex-girlfriend, she testifies
Boeing set to start large-scale furloughs due to machinists strike
Python squeezes Thai woman in her kitchen for 2 hours before she’s rescued by police
After Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating, Memphis officer texted photo of bloodied man to ex-girlfriend, she testifies