G.O.A.T. Featuring James T Smith The Greatest Of All Time

If Barry White is the Walrus Of Love then LL’s the leader of the orang-tang clan, a knuckle-dragging braggart with a lucrative line in greasy pole-dancing steps. Here, 15 years after his emergence, a whole posse of rap Mafiosi have come to pay their ’spects to this old-skooler-turned-entrepreneur: Method Man, Redman, Snoop, Prodigy, Xzibit, Funkmaster Flex, and DMX, all touching knuckles and clanking chains with the godfather of braggadocio.

Check your PC sensibilities at the door. Like Dre’s 2001 and Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Nigga Please, this is a vault full of guilty pleasures.

‘Imagine That’ is the first cut to make you splutter; a triple X fuck-fantasy over a Tom Tom Club throb that’d make Rick James blush. From there, it’s a series of mood swings between the libidinous (‘Take It Off’), the litigious (‘Back Where I Belong’, featuring a barrel-chested turn from Ja Rule and a gob-smacking attack on Canibus, the latest instalment in a long running feud) and combinations of the two (‘Fuhgidabowdit’).

But fuck it neighbours, rock ‘n’ roll, or rap for that matter, ain’t sociology and I’m no apologist for James’ dirty mouth, especially when he’s capable of casually tossing off a line like “Columbine happens in the ghetto every day” (‘Homicide’). And musically, he’s cooking, whether parodying soft-soap soul (‘You And Me’) or appropriating the RZA’s trademark quasi-classical piano licks and urban Orpheus beats for ‘Can’t Think’ and ‘Queens Is’.

Personally, I find the boy-bands’ sexploitation of the pre-pubescent masses more offensive than the foulest routine on G.O.A.T – let’s just say this one earned its Parental Advisory sticker and leave it at that. LL always polarised pundits and punters alike, and was never welcome in hip hop’s inner sanctum. This time he should get paid in kudos rather than coin.