Veteran hip-hop artist LL Cool J recently came on The Ringer Podcast with Bill Simmons and told a hilarious story about talking former Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant out of releasing the Los Angeles Lakers legend's own gangster rap album.
According to LL Cool J, this happened in 1996 or 1997, during Bryant's rookie career with the Lakers. A then-18/19-year-old Kobe asked for LL's advice by letting the renowned rapper listen to his own rap track. Right then and there, LL knew that this was not the path Kobe needed to take.
“So I'm sitting there, and I'm listening to these records, and it's ‘MF this and ‘F that,' and ‘I'm doing this, and I'm doing that,' ‘blah, blah, blah,'” LL Cool J recalled. “And I'm juts like, ‘Yo, Kob, man. This ain't what you need to be doing, baby.'”
To be fair to LL Cool J, he was straight up with Kobe Bryant. He did not sugarcoat it, and told the former Lakers star that he should just focus on his basketball. As it turns out, Kobe's lyrics were so dark and heavy that even LL Cool J himself thought that he should not release the album.
LL then went on to share how the content of the lyric might have an adverse effect on Kobe's very young career at that point. Thankfully, Bryant heeded his advice.
“So I just was telling Kobe, ‘Yo, that's gangster, that's not what you wanna do,'” he added. “And ultimately, it seems like he took my advice. The album never came out.”
We're pretty sure that gangster rap album is out there somewhere, so whoever gets their hands on that is going to be one very rich man.
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