LL Cool J

He was MC 2.0 in an age of rapping roman numerals. Lyrically, next level when his peers couldn't find the stairs (much less an elevator). His voice, exact (like rack-and-pinion in a jag).

The picture of youth and vigor at age 16, when he stepped off Farmers Blvd. In St. Albans, Queens, and onto the mid-'80s Hip Hop circuit, LL Cool J was the first singular artist to make the old school sound, well, old. And he knew it.

"Ignite and excite with verbal extensions/What I mention will put you on a pension," the lanky teen snarled amid the unprecedented verbiage of 1985's OG "Rock The Bells" (no heavy-metal scratch stabs or Trouble Funk breaks necessary for this alt take-just producer Rick Rubin's punishing machine drum percussion.) A few bars down the youngster closed his verse, and perhaps the books, on an era, roaring vocab mad hellfire that put any actual, or imagined, rhyme competitor (old-school or otherwise) on notice.

LL Cool J was that good. A baby-faced verse-enary, he either ended the careers of those who challenged him or outlasted them as they faded into irrelevancy. No mere battle-hungry aggressor, he was also an impeccably gifted storyteller-clever and comical, attentive to detail. He could express more with gibberish than others could with a stack of thesauruses. He pioneered the crossover rap ballad, expanding Hip Hop's emotional range, and doing so, became its first heartthrob. At the height of his powers, he was actually probably too good for his own good, inspiring legions of haters before rallying his talents and public opinion back to his side when he needed them most.