10

It’s the tenth album from LL Cool J, and considering that his previous nine went multi-platinum, you could say he’s been on quite a roll over the past 18 years. While the man who named himself Ladies Love Cool James has never been one to hide his light under a bushel, there’s less self-aggrandizing posturing here than on his last album G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) and as the single ‘Luv U Better’ demonstrates, plenty of positive vibes as well as gansta-isms.

That doesn’t mean the album isn’t a suitably epic and ambitious production and tracks with a bit of bling in the lyric and a sultry female co-vocal like ‘Amazin’ featuring Kandice Love tend to be the most immediate.

Along with the smoochy numbers, there’s plenty of dark and gritty rap on songs like the deliberately-grating ‘Niggy Nuts’ and the sparse but infectiously groovy ‘After School’ featuring P. Diddy. Commendable also is his bizarre choice of samples, with snippets from the likes of Daryl Hall’s ‘Rich Girl’, ‘I Sing The Body Electric’ from the movie Fame and even LL’s own granny on ‘Big Mama’. Despite one or two weaker tracks the album as a whole is excellent and it’s more than likely that 10 will garner Mr. Cool J another few platinum discs for his wall.