Full Name: James Todd Smith
Birthplace: Queens, NY
Birthdate: 1/14/68
Education: High School
Debut: (TV) Radio,1985
Signature: Mama Said Knock You Out

Facts: Performed at the 1993 inaugural celebration for President Bill Clinton, as well as the president's 50th birthday celebration. In 1996 was featured in a commercial for Major League Baseball. In 1992, founded the Camp Cool J Foundation, an organization providing year-round camping, educational cultural and recreational programs for disadvantaged children.

Major Awards: Grammy, Best Rap Solo Performance, Mama Said Knock You Out,,1991; Grammy, Best Solo Rap Performance, Hey Lover, 1996; MTV Video Vanguard Award, which honors lifetime achievement in music videos, 1997 Also, 15 New York Music Awards, 10 Soul Train Awards, a Billboard Music Award and an NAACP Image Favorite Hero award from NARAS.

P U B L I C I T Y

These days the majority of musicians -- especially those in hip-hop -- seem to have the shelf life of a gallon of milk. Dizzyingly fast, they leap to the top of the Billboard album charts, grace the cover of Rolling Stone and rack up platinum album sales, only to topple into eternal obscurity.

Perhaps that's why rapper LL Cool J seems like something of a musical grandfather. It's easy to brush him off as a quaint has-been, a rap trailblazer who's seen better days, but since releasing his first album in 1985 he's seen his rap career develop in tandem with the evolution of the genre itself.

And the rapper-turned-actor has somehow managed to overcome the bleak musical survival rates that have felled so many of his contemporaries. The former James Todd Smith, whose showbiz moniker stands for the very shameless Ladies Love Cool James, sells millions of albums while fellow rap pioneers such as Run-DMC and Kurtis Blow struggle to land record contracts and play the nightclub circuit. His most recent album, 2000's GOAT - Greatest Of All Times landed at the number one spot on Billboard Magazine Charts and is now double platinum, his ninth platinum album in a row. A hip-hop record.

And Cool J has written a best-selling autobiography (1997's I Make My Own Rules), nabbed clothing (Fubu) and soda (Coca-Cola) endorsements and launched his own record label, Rock The Bells Records.

"I haven't achieved everything I want, and I definitely want a lot more," he told The Associated Press in 1998.

So it makes sense that now he's following in the high-profile footsteps of fellow rapper Will Smith and trying his hand at acting. Because despite having two Grammy Awards to his name, Cool J's statuette arsenal isn't complete without an Academy Award, he says. And given his recent foray into acting, that may not be an altogether unrealistic goal.

"It's funny to be a legend in one area and brand new in another," he told The Dallas Morning News in July 1999. "Isn't that bizarre? You have some people who were raised on my music because they happen to like that kind of music, but there are a lot of people who don't know me. So this is great for me."

In 1999 alone, he was seen in the shark-laden action flick Deep Blue Sea and the gritty drama In Too Deep, co-starring Omar Epps, in which he plays a murderer who sells drugs to his brothers.

"I can't get pigeonholed into being this apple-pie guy," he told The Dallas Morning News in July 1999. "But with my part in In Too Deep, I didn't like the lack of respect for life, the fact that if you don't do my bidding, I will murder you. It was kind of like going to hell and back. I had to completely delve into the spirit of that character, really find it, in order to be real about it."

When he joins Al Pacino in Oliver Stone's football drama Any Given Sunday, he is a greedy athlete eager for someone to show him the money.

Yet Cool J says that in entertainment, it's all about the message, not the medium.

"Before I'm a rapper, before I'm an actor, I'm an artist," he told The Dallas Morning News in July 1999. "I really enjoy touching people creatively. For me to be able to sit in a screening of Deep Blue Sea and watch people react the way they did, it's the best feeling in the world."

When it came to his own success, Cool J relied on music to get through a tough childhood. At age 4, he saw his mother and grandfather shot by his father. Both survived. Growing up in Queens, Cool J was continuously beaten by his stepfather, and turned to music to escape the violence at home. By age 9, he was rapping, and shortly thereafter, he dropped his given name in favor of the flashier rap moniker. At 13, thanks to music equipment purchased by his grandfather, the aspiring rapper began producing homemade demos and started hunting for a record deal. At 16, he released his first single, 1984's I Need a Beat, with then-fledgling Def Jam Records.

By 1986, thanks to his trash-talking 1985 debut Radio, LL Cool J was hitting the road with such rap pioneers as Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys.

He then went soft and tender in 1987 with I Need Love, while his 1990 release, Mama Said Knock You Out, earned LL Cool J the first of his two Grammy Awards. And in 1991, he became the first rapper ever to deliver an acoustic set on MTV's Unplugged show, joining the ranks of such bands as Nirvana and the 10,000 Maniacs to let it all hang out musically on television.

Musically, he's always focused on rapping about the trappings of the good life and stayed away from the ultra-violent, ferocious gangsta rap taken up by many hard-core rappers. Despite a foray into gangsta lyrics on 1993's 14 Shots to the Dome, Cool J has retained his reputation as one of rap's good guys. And that's aroused the ire of quite a few rappers, including Ice-T, Kool Moe Dee and Canibus, all of whom have lambasted Cool J for not keeping it real and selling out.

Yet Cool J never let the critics get him down. He preferred to make music his way, refusing to glorify murder or misogyny.

Never content to focus on music alone, the rapper appeared in 1985's Krush Groove and 1986's Wildcats before making his feature film debut in 1991's The Hard Way, opposite Michael J. Fox. He followed it up with a role in 1992's Toys with Robin Williams. After a five-year hiatus, which included the 1995 debacle Out of Sync, Cool J has moved on to higher-profile movies. Now, he says he's adjusted to being in front of the camera and is finally comfortable with seeing himself on the big screen. Despite some hits -- but mostly misses -- he's in acting for the long haul and he aims to walk away with at least one Oscar in his hands.

"My dream is to get an Academy Award, make blockbuster movies. I want to do it for real," he told the New York Post in August 1999.