L L Cool J

The royal chief rocker, no longer a precocious teen-ager, swaps his Kangols for some fly threads, his adolescent obsessions for the pressures of manhood, the weak, poppy beats of his last two albums for spooky drones from master-mixer Marley Marl. L.L.'s voice dropped half an octave, too, and his virtuosic machine-gun articulation slowed down into something subtler, more elastic and expressive, something close to Big Daddy Kane's. This is the first album where L.L.

If you think the new generation of rappers has left this veteran in the dust, check out this entertaining 65 minutes of greatest-hits clips and interviews. Maybe these clips are relatively tame by today's raunchy standards, but the pleasure of watching Cool J in videos like "Mama Said Knock You Out" and "Big Ole Butt" is in savoring his snappy, crackling delivery. None of the clips are particularly provocative or pithy, but some are funny and all are elegantly shot and conceptually imaginative.

Zig Ziglar died Wednesday at age 86, a deep-voiced motivational speaker whose clever way with words inspired millions to stop looking for shortcuts to success -- and instead earn it the old-fashioned way by rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. "Zig Ziglar" was a trending term on Twitter, Yahoo and Google today, social media outlets that were unfathomable when a young Ziglar returned from World War II and landed a job in sales. It was on the job that Ziglar developed a curiosity about human nature -- What made a man tick?

** 1/2"BIGGER AND DEFFER." L.L. Cool J. Def Jam. *"YOU'RE GONNA GET YOURS." Public Enemy. Def Jam. In peak form, L.L. Cool J can rap faster than the speed of three Beastie Boys and deliver the kind of fresh imagery that runs circles around Run-D.M.C. His 1985 debut album, "Radio," marked him as one of rap music's top talents.

PolyGram Buys Half of Rap Label Def Jam: The company paid $33 million for the 11-year-old label, which includes such rap acts as L.L. Cool J., Public Enemy and Warren G. The company's catalogue includes the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy. PolyGram, controlled by Dutch electronics giant Philips, has distributed Def Jam records in the United States since June. The purchase is retroactive to June 1 of this year.

Who's going to topple Fine Young Cannibals? Probably none of the albums currently in the Billboard magazine Top 10. After five weeks this band's "Raw and the Cooked" is still cooking--at No. 1. The old-timers are really tearing up the charts. The word around the industry was that Paul McCartney's album, "Flowers in the Dirt," would be another stiff. But it's raced up to No. 21 in just two weeks. And how about the Doobie Bros.? Their "Cycles" climbed seven more rungs--to No. 17. Though still a very young man, L.L. Cool J is one of the grand old men of rap. In fact some of the radical young rappers who've surfaced since his last album have dismissed him as a relic.

Out of "20 Bands That Matter" I could only find four. These include Hilburn's top three (U2, Guns N' Roses, Public Enemy) and Los Lobos. I believe Public Enemy was included because the author of any article entitled "20 Bands That Matter" would be rightly accused of racism if he did not include the group. Having opened the rap door, Hilburn slams it shut again to exclude N.W.A., L.L. Cool J and 2 Live Crew. Rock as we know it began with white kids discovering the excitement of black music.