#7: LL Cool J
James Todd Smith – also known as LL Cool J – burst onto the scene in 1990 with his hit song Mama said Knock You Out. It was a simpler time before the Gangsta Rap genre left its ugly stain on society by poisoning the well for entire generations of young black American males with romanticized black on black violence and police targeting.
Although it did not lyrically advocate violence, LL came out with Illegal Search the same year. The song portrayed police officers as a jealous and spiteful group trying to hold him down by planting evidence, illegally searching his car, intimidating him, and locking him up simply because he was a successful black male. While spite and jealousy are a human character flaw present in us all, I have never felt them in my job nor used them as a driver for investigating any single person. LL Cool J has abandoned his Hip-Hop career to play a police officer on NCIS: LA and Hawaii Five-O. He also played an officer alongside Samuel L. Jackson – another dishonorable on this list – in the movie S.W.A.T. LL Cool J was quick to defend Beyoncé’s halftime show at Superbowl 50 which featured a performance of her song Formation. Of course, the performance paid tribute to the militant Black Panther Party and Black Lives Matter.
