Today in Hip-Hop — October 14: LL Cool J’s Phenomenon Turns 29, and the Mic Tattoo That Started a War

October 14, 1997. LL Cool J drops Phenomenon on Def Jam, and it turns 29 today. The album went Platinum and debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200, but those numbers aren’t why heads still talk about it. Track 7 is “4, 3, 2, 1,” an Erick Sermon posse cut with Method Man, Redman, DMX and a hungry newcomer named Canibus. One line on that record, about the microphone tattooed on LL’s arm, started one of the most studied beefs of the late ’90s.

Here’s the receipt. In his verse Canibus rapped, “L, is that a mic on your arm? Let me borrow that.” Canibus says he meant it as a nod to the veteran. LL heard a challenge and answered on the same song: “The symbol on my arm is off limits to challengers / You hold the rusty sword, I swing the Excalibur.” Before the record came out, LL asked Canibus to rewrite his lines. Canibus did. LL kept his. So the album version has the Queens legend swinging at someone who, as far as the listener can tell, never threw a punch.

The original verse leaked, fans connected the dots, and Canibus was cut from the first video. The single came out December 9, 1997, as an extended cut with a Master P verse added. It reached No. 75 on the Hot 100 and No. 10 on Hot Rap Singles. Then came 1998: Canibus answered with “Second Round K.O.,” produced by Wyclef Jean and Jerry Wonder with Mike Tyson in the booth. It became his only Top 40 single, peaking at No. 28. LL fired back with “The Ripper Strikes Back,” and two years later he thanked Canibus for “inspiration” in the liner notes of G.O.A.T. Under all of that, Sermon’s beat carries a vocal sample of LL’s own 1985 “Rock the Bells” along with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “Superrappin’.” That’s a posse cut built out of rap’s founding documents, and it turned into the start of a war. The cut also caught DMX seven months before It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot dropped. We went deep on X’s catalog in our “Slippin'” breakdown.

We made the Canibus Rip the Jacker tee for the heads who rewind the leaked verse first. If you’re riding with the man who had the tattoo, the LL Cool J “I Can’t Live Without My Radio” tee goes back to where it all started. For Canibus’s side of the story, read our September 8 piece on his debut.

Also today in hip-hop:

• Rawkus, Soundbombing (Oct 14, 1997, 29 years): it came out the same day as Phenomenon, and the two sound nothing alike. Da Beatminerz’s DJ Evil Dee mixed Rawkus’s 1997 12-inches into one tape, billed as “The Ultimate Guide to Underground Hip-Hop.” Highlights include “Fortified Live” by Reflection Eternal with Mos Def on a Hi-Tek beat, a Mos and Kweli freestyle, and R.A. the Rugged Man’s “Till My Heart Stops.” Christgau gave it an A−. The Black Star era starts here.
• Diamond D, The Huge Hefner Chronicles (Oct 14, 2008, 18 years): his third solo album, on Babygrande. The D.I.T.C. beatsmith did something unusual for him and shared the boards, bringing in DJ Scratch, Nottz and Illmind.
• Lil Baby, It’s Only Me (Oct 14, 2022, 4 years): it debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 216,000 units, his third chart-topper. Its 288.97 million on-demand streams made it the third-largest streaming week of 2022.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team

Jon Jones