Chart entered : 4 June 1987
Chart peak : 71
Number of hits : 23
An appropriate title in more ways than one for the first solo rapper to make the cut.
James Todd Smith was born in Bay Shore, New York in 1968. His first musical influence was The Treacherous Three from the Sugar Hill rap stable. His grandfather bought him some recording equipment and James started making demo tapes at home and sending them out. He chose his stage name ( short for Ladies Love Cool James ) as a deliberate move away from the prevalent drug culture ( e.g Kurtis Blow ). In 1984 he ran into Rick Rubin at a party and became the first artist on the Def Jam label.
His first single was the 12 inch "I Need A Beat" co-written with Rubin and the Beasties' Adam, Horowitz. It's a beatbox percussion track punctuated by scratching noises with James declaring how great he is over the top . The appeal of that sort of thing is always going to elude me. It didn't make the charts but sold 100,000 copies and along with the Beasties' Rock Hard , led to Def Jam getting a distribution deal from Columbia.
J set about making his first album "Radio" trailed by the single "I Can't Live Without My Radio" in October 1985. It sounds pretty much identical to its predecessor except the drum pattern's a bit more interesting and J is homaging his beatbox rather than his skills. It got him on Soul Train but didn't cross over to the main chart.
As the first album released on Def Jam "Radio" sticks to Rubin's minimalist blueprint and it's a hard listen for anyone wanting melody or even bass lines. J writes with more wit than say Run DMC but it's not nearly enough to compensate. Ladies might indeed love him for the softer-edged tracks "I Can Give You More" and "I Want You" but it's not clear if he loves them back. "Dear Yvette " is a sustained attack on a supposed slag and pretty unpleasant. Hip hop's association with misogyny begins here. "You''ll Rock" and "Rock The Bells " were released as further singles, helping the album reach number 46 in the US charts ( number 71 in the UK ).
"I'm Bad" was the lead single for his next album "Bigger And Deffer" . It marks a retreat from the rhythmic minimalism of his debut by having a simple bass line and that small concession seem to have been enough to make it his first minor hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Otherwise it's business as usual with J taking a wearing 16 verses to tell you how great he is. I'm presuming there was a radio edit that lost the oedipal compound noun in the second verse.
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