LL Cool J opens up about the advice he gave Kobe Bryant about gangster rap.
The 52-year-old rapper has recalled a time when his late pal — who was killed, along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others, in a helicopter crash last month at age 41 — played him a hip hop record he had recorded, but LL was “confused” and told him gangster rap was “not what you need to be doing.”
He said: “We talked about rap. He played me this album, this gangster rap album and I was like, ‘Kobe,’ I said, ‘Come on dog. That’s not what you need to be doing [laughs].’ I was confused, I was sitting there like, ‘What are we doing? You got endorsements, what are you doing?'”
LL joked it was the “funniest moment” of his life listening to pro basketball player Kobe perform gangster rap.
He said: “It had to be the funniest moment of my life, listening to him do gangster rap.”
While Bryant didn’t make a side career out of rapping, he did release a single, “K.O.B.E.” in 2000.
He performed his titular song at the 2000 NBA All-Star Game — a basketball exhibition match, hosted annually by the National Basketball Association — in 2000 with Tyra Banks.
And LL told “Entertainment Tonight,” “Yeah, we’re not gonna pretend like we weren’t laughing. … but you know, he took his shot. He took his shot.”
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