Mama Said Knock You Out

Highs and lows. I genuinely do like Ladies Love Cool James. I think it's funny that he plays both the Heel and the Babyface in rap and maybe was one of the first to treat it like a wrestling star in a way? I like his flow for the era. That said it gets to be a little stale in places on this album

I've never been that much of a fan of LL Cool J, this was pretty nice though. One of the real Hip Hop pioneers who was already an oldhead by the time this came out, even though he was only 22 at the time. This has a surprising amount of R&B touches inside. It's kind of a forgettable listen though. It isn't as nice to listen to as a De La Soul or Eric B & Rakim. It's a fun but kind of forgettable listen. 6 minutes of pleasure and the title track are my favorites here.

Some songs are annoying (Milky Cereal, Jingling Baby) and others are not really my thing.

??????????????? DO NADA O MANO LANÇA AS PIOR LETRA DO MUNDO QUE ISSO, pelo menos são poucas partes horríveis!!
mas os beats e samples tão em dia, pelo menos. 6 minutes of pleasure é bem boa, na real, mas é isso só

I wanted to like this. The man is fiiinne and the title track is a good time. But the longer this album went on the less I could ignore that he’s an awkward rapper. The album is too long and the quality of the tracks gets worse as it goes on.

A pretty good album altogether, though sounded a bit dated and I didn't like how they removed most of the profanity. 2.7/5 - > 3/5

Some of this is a little creepy. Maybe it seemed fine in 1990. Some of the beats got a bit samey too; I swear multiple tracks sampled Funky Drummer.

Not too bad but the beats are all the same and not the most interesting.

Well I’ll never look at a Mister Goodbar the same way again.

My first reaction to this was annoyance at how long it was. But you know, it's a pretty enjoyable album. It's pretty funky with some nice rhymes in there. I'm not a hip-hop guy, but I much prefer these kind of vibes compared to some of the more modern stuff.

So repetitive and just did my nut in by the end tbh

2 ⭐️

Enjoyable, maybe dated (what early 90s hip hop album isn't misogynistic) but some good jams, 4*
Highlights: mama said knock you out (don't call it a comeback!), around the way girl

God this hurts.
It’s taken 4 sessions to get through this. A lot of rhyming couplets I would expect to read if I was marking a 12 year old’s homework.
“When we began her hairstyle was neat/But when I left the next morning it looked like shredded wheat”. Pathetic.
“And I can't make you/I sure wouldn't rape you”. Well that’s SO kind of you. And you've got a detention.

Lame lyrics, Boring repetitive tunes.

Got 1 star written all over it. But I feel I have to upgrade to 2 for shoehorning in a bit of Northern England slang “Big juicy legs/And a nice pair of kegs”. Sound.

An album with a couple hits, one I know pretty well, but the whole album reeks of being a transitional album. The album has beats and production sometimes reminiscent of the 90s, other times the lyrics and and flow is purely 80s. It not only suffers from that "I'm the illest," bars that were dated years before this album, other times the lyrics are just terrible. "Surely I won't rape you?" Seriously? Sickening, and just plain creepy. The beats are also cut too short, leading to anger only a few songs in, as they hardly do enough to warrant the 4+ minute runtime. It not only is dated, but it is aggravating, and while I cannot deny the catchy factor found in Mama Said Knock You Out, the rest of the album fails to even sort of reach that song, and even that falls into the same realm as something like Hammer Time, and I'm sure you don't need explanation on how that's an insult. If this is the best LL Cool J gets, I fail to see how he was one of the main MCs of the time.

Tough one... the highs are great. Boomin system, around the way girl, jingling baby, mama said knock you out. The lows are low - Mr. good bar, milky cereal and others. Hard to deny how popular and important this album was at the time though.

Mama Said Knock You Out was a surprisingly very good album. I didn't have the highest expectations going into it in which i was expecting to only like the back half but a good majority (if not all of it) turned out to be very good. The beats all were really cool sounding and the only issue with them is that they could get a little repetitive but it was rare. The main selling point of this album though, was the rapping itself. The LL Cool J had some really good flows and somehow he could manage to make them sound so good without swearing all that much which is difficult for a lot of rappers to do. Aside from the repetition, There isn't really anything for me to complain about so all I'll say is its a really good album.
Best Song: Mama Said Knock You Out
Worst Song: Mr. Good Bar

I tried again, but I don't get on with the genre. I played the first track on the album. As not much happened musically at the beginning, I skipped on. No change. I watched most of the video for the second piece. Pretty girls dancing there. But that would be the best thing about it. Finally, I listened to Mama Said Knock You Out, but finished it quickly. What I heard of the album wasn't as annoying as other albums in the genre. Nevertheless, I don't need this album either. 1/5

Corny? Maybe. But LL has always been in the same lane as, say, Will Smith. A fairly radio friendly east coast rapper who can mix corny shit/comedy in with fire (for the time) bars.

Trackwise, the title song still goes hard 35 years later... 'Cos he's fronting in his ride and his word is bond.

LL: I have so many rhymes. My rhymes are amazing. You found yours in a garbage can

Also LL: Down rhymes with down!

In fairness, there's only one example of this that I found on this album, but I feel like if you're writing about your attention to detail, misspellings pretty much make your argument moot.

I absolutely could do without the chorus of Milky Cereal. Otherwise, great song. Great beat

There were a couple of clever lines in To Da Break of Dawn that made me laugh out loud.

3.5

Mukavan laiska ääni riimittelijällä ja ihan jees taustat. 3/5