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LL Cool J signed his first record contract at age 16, becoming the first artist on Def Jam. Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons founded the company, while Ad Rock of the Beastie Boys programmed the debut beat.
LL Cool J was exposed to early hip hop tapes from the Bronx between 1975 and 1977. He listened to groups like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Four before the genre entered mainstream pop culture.
LL Cool J trains in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Brian Glick, a student of John Danaher. LL Cool J argues that combat sports provide essential humility for celebrities because charisma cannot defend against a submission.
LL Cool J uses Prussian general Karl von Clausewitz's strategic Trinity of passion, chance, and reason to analyze modern society. LL Cool J argues that public discourse has swung entirely into emotion, rendering logic ineffective.
LL Cool J credits Bruce Lee as his primary inspiration for pursuing acting. Joe Rogan notes that Lee acted as the first true mixed martial artist, breaking traditional martial arts silos by blending boxing, kung fu, judo, and savate.
Joe Rogan and LL Cool J discuss Bruce Lee's official cause of death, which was cerebral edema. The coroner attributed this to a hypersensitivity reaction to the prescription painkiller Equigesic, though alternative theories suggest extreme water intake.
LL Cool J reveals that the silhouette on the Public Enemy logo is actually his late friend E-Love. Chuck D photographed E-Love on stage with LL Cool J and used the image to create the group's iconic branding.
LL Cool J explains that gold chains in 1980s hip hop did not signal elite wealth. Instead, wearing expensive jewelry in rough neighborhoods signaled that the artist was physically tough enough to protect their possessions.
LL Cool J notes that his album Radio credits Rick Rubin with reducing the music rather than producing it. This reflected Rubin's philosophy of stripping away disco-era live bands to focus entirely on minimal drum machine beats.
LL Cool J's mother used her tax return to buy him a Korg drum machine at age 16. This equipment allowed LL Cool J and DJ Finesse to record the pause-tape demo that eventually launched the Def Jam label.
LL Cool J introduced hip hop to Maine in 1985 by performing in a small school gymnasium. Alongside DJ Cut Creator, he had to physically explain and demonstrate how DJ scratching and rapping functioned to an unfamiliar audience.
LL Cool J disputes the idea that growth ends at middle age, arguing that dreams lack deadlines. He cites Colonel Sanders starting KFC at age 65 and Cornelius Vanderbilt building railroads in his 80s as proof that people can always reinvent themselves.
Lightning Labs developer Roast Beef proposed a Bolt 11 spec modification to reject invoices containing duplicate payment hashes. The proposal follows a peer-to-peer trading bot exploit caused by differing library parsing behaviors.