The editors of Village Voice ranked it the #9 album of 1990. A New York Times reviewer wrote “On the rebound from a dud album Walking With a Panther, LL Cool J has gone back to street level”. The album was critically acclaimed and restored LL’s relevance in hip hop.
Though the title song begins with the line “Don’t call it a comeback”, many felt Mama was exactly that. The fourth and final single “6 Minutes Of Pleasure” was a minor pop crossover hit. Its third single, the title track, also went gold, reached the top 20 and won LL his first Grammy. However, it was the second single “Around The Way Girl” that propelled the album to Platinum status in less than 5 months when it went gold and broke the top 10 on US pop chart. One month before the album, Mama’s official lead single “The Boomin' System” topped the rap chart and had moderate crossover pop success. Two months before the album’s release, “To Da Break Of Dawn” – a diss track directed at Kool Moe Dee, MC Hammer & Ice-T – was included on the Kid N Play film House Party 2 and later included on Mama as a ‘previously released track’.
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While Panther was technically a success, reaching #6 and going platinum in less than two months plus spawning three top 15 rap hits, one of them crossing over and reaching #15 on the pop chart, LL found himself being critized as lazy, a sellout, and out of touch with the current climate of hip hop.Īfter a conversation with his grandmother about the criticism where she responded, “Oh baby, just knock them out!”, LL was inspired to make his next album “his most aggressive work to date, a rough, streetwise album”. That remix, with re-recorded vocals, became Panther’s fourth and final single as “Jingling Baby (Remixed And Still Jingling)”. It's reasonable to assume the album, Mama Said Knock You Out could have sold even more than it's double platinum status.The genesis of Mama Said Knock You Out was a collaboration between LL Cool J and producer Marley Marl who asked LL if he could remix “Jingling Baby” from 1989’s Walking With A Panther. In hindsight, they know this would've been the best thing to do, but at the time they were too unsure. The story behind the song is that LL got the chorus lyric from his grandmother who told him “to knock out” his critics!īoth LL and the record company still wonder what would've happened had they released “Mama Said Knock You Out” immediately and then dropped “Around The Way Girl” as a follow-up. It only charted decently, however, this is likely due to the album having been out for so long at this point. Almost half a year after the album's release they dropped the single which is one of LL's most popular songs until this day. Now that they had finally found the successful single that they needed they decided to do what should have done all along and they released the title track “Mama Said Knock You Out” on February 26, 1991. It's considered one of the best diss tracks of all-time. The track also serves as a diss track to a few of his rivals at the time such as MC Hammer, Kool Moe Dee, and Ice-T.
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It was also included in the Kid 'n Play's movie House Party from 1990. “To Da Break of Dawn” was the first single and it didn't chart anywhere except Australia of all places! However, this was before the release of the actual album and it can be seen as a “testing the waters” single. Mama Said Knock You Out was released on August 28, 1990, and is LL Cool J's fourth album. And it paid off, both commercially and critically. She told him that she believed in his talent and this inspired LL to go hard, yet stay true to himself. Luckily she had some good advice for Todd when she told him, “Oh baby, just knock them out!” referring to his critics. LL was so troubled by this that he sat down to talk to his grandmother about it. Back in 1990, LL Cool J felt that he couldn't compete with the new era of gangsta rappers, several of them had even dissed him in their songs.