Last month, American rapper and actor LL Cool J shocked the music world by announcing that his first album in eleven years, The FORCE (Frequencies Of Real Creative Energy), will be released later this year.
The announcement was accompanied by the first single – the first song with LL Cool J as the lead artist, Saturday Night Single, starring special guests Rick Ross and Fat Joe and production by A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip. At the time of that release (14 June), LL Cool J teased that the song was “just the beginning.”
He added, “There’s a lot more where this came from, and I’m hype for y’all to hear this new record. We’re doing this for the fans and for Hip-Hop culture.”
It turns out that LL Cool J certainly had a lot more up his sleeve. Yesterday (12 July), he announced the release date for The FORCE and its stacked guestlist on social media. The follow-up to 2013’s Authentic will be released via Def Jam Recordings/Virgin Music Group on Friday, 6 September.
Featuring 14 tracks, LL Cool J’s latest will star special guests, including Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Nas, Saweetie, and more. You can check out the tracklist below.
In addition to sharing the tracklist and release date (and pre-order/pre-save link), LL Cool J dropped the second single from The FORCE, Passion. Below, you can find the music video.
In a new interview with The Associated Press, LL Cool J revealed that he had to learn “how to rap again” for his first album in eleven years.
He said of the process of recording the LP: “[I was] going back to the drawing board and learning how to rap again… making sure I was really inspired by the things I was saying. That’s why there isn’t a lot of fluff on this album.”
You can pre-order physical copies of the album here or pre-save it to the streaming service of your choice here.
LL COOL J – The FORCE Track List:
1. Spirit Of Cyrus (feat. Snoop Dogg)
2. The FORCE
3. Saturday Night Special (feat. Rick Ross and Fat Joe)
4. Black Code Suite (feat. Sona Jobarteh)
5. Passion
6. Proclivities (feat. Saweetie)
7. Post Modern
8. 30 Decembers
9. Runnit Back
10. Huey In Da Chair (feat. Busta Rhymes)
11. Basquiat Energy
12. Praise Him (feat. Nas)
13. Murdergram Deux (feat. Eminem)
14. The Vow (feat. Mad Squablz, J-S.A.N.D., and Don Pablito)