"On Friday, September 1st, the F.O.R.C.E. (Frequencies of Real Creative Energy) tour performed at the Chase Center in San Francisco. With a star-packed lineup including Rakim, Doug E Fresh and Slick Rick, Salt-N-Pepa, Ice T, Black Thought, LL Cool J, and a surprise appearance by E-40, the F.O.R.C.E. tour was an epic celebration of the 50th anniversary of hip hop." -- Isaiah Kahn, 8th grade
“This is a beautiful thing to see y’all,” said Ice T as he concluded his section of the show. “I’m still up here doing this sh*t, I’m 65 years motherf*ckin’ old.” Tracy Lauren Marrow, better known as Ice T, was one of the first gangster rappers and a legend in hip hop, coining the term OG (Original Gangster).
Born in 1958 in New Jersey, Ice T moved to Los Angeles at age 12. Apart from musical success with songs like Colors and Six n’ the Mornin’, he was featured in hip hop documentary Breakin’ n’ Enterin’ and was in various shows and movies throughout the 90s. More recently, he’s been a regular on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, appearing in over 400 episodes, along with voice acting for Grand Theft Auto: San Andrea and participating in The Masked Dancer.
Born in 1958 in New Jersey, Ice T moved to Los Angeles at age 12. Apart from musical success with songs like Colors and Six n’ the Mornin’, he was featured in hip hop documentary Breakin’ n’ Enterin’ and was in various shows and movies throughout the 90s. More recently, he’s been a regular on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, appearing in over 400 episodes, along with voice acting for Grand Theft Auto: San Andrea and participating in The Masked Dancer.
Ice T at Chase Center
He still occasionally releases music, though very infrequent. It was surprising he was on this tour, due to him famously dissing LL Cool J in “I’m Your Pusher.” He explained that it was never anything more than rap beef that they resolved when they performed together at the 2022 Grammys, at which the idea for this tour was born.
The show lasted 3 and a half hours, with each rapper having a little over twenty minutes. The legendary group The Roots provided music the entire time, while DJ Jazzy Jeff and DJ Z-Trip DJ’ed. Having both a DJ and band on stage for the entire length of the show was an innovative idea, and LL Cool J, the face of the tour, was optimistic about how it would come out. “It won’t be like anything that anybody has seen because it’s not just acoustic,” he explained in an interview with Deadline, “it’s a mash-up of all of these vibes and sounds. I think that that’s going to take it to another level, you know?”
The F.O.R.C.E. tour traveled all over the US plus one show in Toronto, hitting 24 places from June 25th to September 3rd. The lineup varied from place to place, with big names such as Queen Latifah, Common, MC Lyte, Big Boi, Bones Thugs-N-Harmony, Juvenile, Goodie Mob, Jadakiss, and Rick Ross, plus those already mentioned. The Roots, DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Z-Trip, and of course LL Cool J appeared at every show.
The show lasted 3 and a half hours, with each rapper having a little over twenty minutes. The legendary group The Roots provided music the entire time, while DJ Jazzy Jeff and DJ Z-Trip DJ’ed. Having both a DJ and band on stage for the entire length of the show was an innovative idea, and LL Cool J, the face of the tour, was optimistic about how it would come out. “It won’t be like anything that anybody has seen because it’s not just acoustic,” he explained in an interview with Deadline, “it’s a mash-up of all of these vibes and sounds. I think that that’s going to take it to another level, you know?”
The F.O.R.C.E. tour traveled all over the US plus one show in Toronto, hitting 24 places from June 25th to September 3rd. The lineup varied from place to place, with big names such as Queen Latifah, Common, MC Lyte, Big Boi, Bones Thugs-N-Harmony, Juvenile, Goodie Mob, Jadakiss, and Rick Ross, plus those already mentioned. The Roots, DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Z-Trip, and of course LL Cool J appeared at every show.
LL Cool J performing Rock The Bells in the show's finale at Chase Center
As mentioned earlier, the idea for the tour was sparked by a Grammy performance (which can be watched on Youtube) including a surplus of 80s and 90s hip hop legends. “When we started rehearsing,” said LL Cool J in an interview with Detroit News, “and we saw how it felt to have all of these groups on one set, it felt like yo, you know what? We need to do this in different cities. We need to check people's availabilities and do this, because hip-hop fans are going to know all of this music, and seeing these acts presented this way is going to be so new and unique and fresh that everybody's gonna be rocking with it. It'll be the best hip-hop tour in years."
Dr. Dolores Thompson, a faculty member at OSA and longtime radio personality for over 25 years, is a big fan of 80s and 90s hip hop. “Russel Simmons, one of the heads of Def Jam introduced me to him,” said Thompson on LL Cool J. “He was just so confident and cocky and, you know, at first I didn’t want to like him but I fell in love with that song Bad. I started liking him because I realized he had to be that way, you know what I’m saying, he had to live out the persona.”
The song, I’m Bad, starts out with a police radio describing LL Cool J as a “tall light-skinned brother with dimples'' followed by LL Cool J rapping the lyrics “no rapper can rap quite like I can, I take a muscle bound man and put his face in the sand.” This “braggadocious" theme continues throughout the song with other memorable lyrics like “I’m notorious, I’ll crush you like a jelly bean,” and “so forget Oreos, eat Cool J Cookies!”
LL Cool J stands for Ladies Love Cool James, his real name being James Todd Smith. A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee as of 2021, he was one of the first big rappers and a G.O.A.T. for many. Growing up in Queens, he started rapping at age 10. His family was supportive, and he was signed by Def Jam at 16. He made many albums with the record label, most of which were well received and granted him massive success. His influence in rap and regular life is palpable, coining both “don’t call it a comeback,” with his 1990 hit song Mamma Said Knock You Out and the very popular acronym G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) with his 2000 album titled G.O.A.T.
LL Cool J at Chase Center
Like Ice T, LL Cool J also acts in many shows such as NCIS Los Angeles among others. The F.O.R.C.E. tour was his first arena tour in 30 years. He is releasing an album later this year titled the same as the tour, which will be his first in a decade.
“His determination was off the scale,” said Dwayne Simon, one of the producers on LL Cool J’s first four albums. “Failure wasn’t an option. Micheal Jordan was cut from his highschool basketball team. Barry Sanders sat on the bench in college behind Thurman Thomas… LL Cool J was passed over by Tommy Boy Records among other labels. Greatness like that comes once in a blue moon. Gotta seize the moment.”
Simon, also known as the “Muffler”, produced some popular LL Cool J songs like “Big Ole Butt'' and “Jingling Baby.” Hip Hop was and still is a genre in which sampling is massively popular, where someone takes a song and adds parts of it to their new one. For this, Simon and other producers were sued many times.
The F.O.R.C.E. tour also featured Doug E Fresh and Slick Rick. “By far, Doug E Fresh and Slick Rick are my favorites,” said Thompson. “Doug E is a party. Period. I mean he dances, he’s the beatbox, he can rap, he gets the party started. The first time I heard his Entertainer I was like ‘this is sick!’ how he took that cartoon theme and turned it into a party. I loved him on so many levels. He’s respectful, he loves the culture, he is the culture, and you never hear him dissing anybody or beefing with anybody. Never heard anything like that about him. He’s just straight up, you know, just straight up.”
Doug E Fresh beatboxing at Chase Center
Doug E Fresh, real name Douglas Davis, was the main creator of beatboxing, from which his nickname “The Human Beatbox” comes from. Able to create entire beats with solely his voice and doing so on tracks like “La-Di-Da-Di,” Doug E Fresh and Slick Rick were among the first popular rappers, as are most on this tour.
In short, the F.O.R.C.E. tour was a great way to celebrate Hip Hop’s half-century anniversary. Each rapper featured in the tour was at worst a rap legend. People like Rakim, credited for being the first to use internal and multisyllabic rhyme schemes, and Salt-N-Pepa, the first all-female rap group and also massive pioneers in Hip Hop.
“I didn’t choose this industry,” concluded Dwayne Simon. “It chose me. I came up through Uncle Jamm’s Army as a promoter and DJ. The records they were playing were makeable, so we started making them. Mostly just beats but just as, if not more, funky than the originals. The rest made up the 50 year history of Hip Hop.”
