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Who will have the most longevity? Will Smith or LL Cool J


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It's really about perspective. LL's obviously going to get a great deal of acclaim... however, he hasn't received much criticism throughout his career and hasn't really stirred things. Will's been more controversial in that he's generated a lot of talk about what "keeping it real" actually means, and he and Jeff have sparked discourse concerning the image of hip hop. LL has not had that sort of impact. If I could go back and had to choose which of the two I'd rather have, I'd still choose Will, even knowing that his focus would later change, because his impact has been greater.

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Yeah LL hasn't really criticised gangsta rap as much as Will has and that actually helped him stay in the game a long time, he just makes great music and stays in his own lane and not criticise what the next man is doing, and the thing is though that people find Will hypocritical, I mean Will criticises rappers for bragging about how much money they have but what did he do when he responded to Eminem? "Big Will with another 20 mill walks right past E", basically that's Will bragging that he has more money than Eminem, is it not? That's what you come with 5 years after Eminem dissed him? Just think if he answered back in 2000, he could've ended Eminem, there'd be no D-12, no 50 Cent, or no G-Unit, it'd changed the game forever....

FP could've came much stroner than that, if he wanted to respond to Em 5 years later, people looked at that whole "Mr. Nice Guy" thing as a gimmick to save his dying rap career after "Born To Reign" flopped, I think he should just make music and do less criticising of what other rappers do 'cause he does the same thing sometimes, and his most famous album "Big Willie Style" was constant bragging about how much money and fame he has,

if he is gonna criticise gangsta rappers he should just call them out by name and end their careers, that's the only way he should...

He's my favorite mc and I respect that he's standing up for real hip-hop but Iwish he could stick to making great music that a lot could appreciate, everybody has different opinions about hip-hop but they'd all like Fresh Prince music if he didn't criticise anybody, some who like gangsta rap might like some Will's music but they won't say it 'cause they don't wanna look soft 'cause Will being critical towards gangsta rap, "plenty of y'all love a brotha, just scared to say it"...

Edited by bigted
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Yeah LL hasn't really criticised gangsta rap as much as Will has and that actually helped him stay in the game a long time, he just makes great music and stays in his own lane and not criticise what the next man is doing, and the thing is though that people find Will hypocritical, I mean Will criticises rappers for bragging about how much money they have but what did he do when he responded to Eminem? "Big Will with another 20 mill walks right past E", basically that's Will bragging that he has more money than Eminem, is it not? That's what you come with 5 years after Eminem dissed him? Just think if he answered back in 2000, he could've ended Eminem, there'd be no D-12, no 50 Cent, or no G-Unit, it'd changed the game forever....

Haha, you really believe that do you? Well im sorry to bust your bubble.. but thats not how the music business works...

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Yeah LL hasn't really criticised gangsta rap as much as Will has and that actually helped him stay in the game a long time, he just makes great music and stays in his own lane and not criticise what the next man is doing, and the thing is though that people find Will hypocritical, I mean Will criticises rappers for bragging about how much money they have but what did he do when he responded to Eminem? "Big Will with another 20 mill walks right past E", basically that's Will bragging that he has more money than Eminem, is it not? That's what you come with 5 years after Eminem dissed him? Just think if he answered back in 2000, he could've ended Eminem, there'd be no D-12, no 50 Cent, or no G-Unit, it'd changed the game forever....

Haha, you really believe that do you? Well im sorry to bust your bubble.. but thats not how the music business works...

But that's what happened when LL finished Canibus, Canibus was about to become one of the most famous rappers in the game, they were saying that he'd be bigger than DMX and look how well DMX has done, that tell's you how strong power LL has, Bis was having a lot of hype when he made "2nd Round Knockout" but once LL responded Canibus' hype died off, Eminem in late 1999/early2000 wasn't as popular as he is now, he was one of the rising rappers of the game and Will could've finished him off since he was very popular as a rapper still in 2000, but once "Marshall Mathers LP" came out and sold 10 million it was too late for Will to respond, now if Will responded right away before the "Marshall..." album came out then that could've slowed Em's hype down and raised "Willenium"'s sales at the same time but in reality Em got too big and Will ran off to do films, and to answer back to Max people do criticise LL when he's doing love songs, that's why Kool Moe Dee dissed him, that's why Ice-T dissed him, that's why Canibus dissed him, and that's probably why more hardcore rappers'll diss him gradually again, hip-hop is about being hardcore and how men are superior, LL takes a big risk for making passionate songs about women but he always answers back directly when people diss him, Will didn't respond to Eminem until 5 years later and there's others that've dissed him over the years that he never responded to, or at least people think that way, maybe if he released "Don't Say Nothin" as a single instead of "Miami" he'd have more credability as an mc right now, that'd be like if LL never released "4,3,2,1" or "Mama Said Knock You Out", maybe less would respect LL now too, I could see people testing LL's credability again if he keeps doing songs with Lloyd Banks but no matter who disses either Will or LL they're gonna remain my favorite mcs...

Edited by bigted
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5 years ago if you said that Jamie Foxx would be a household name in Hollywood, some people would laugh at you just like I say LL could be a household name in Hollywood, then he could come back and drop the highest selling album of his rap career, I think his career has a lot of life left, LL's very talented, I think Will needs more balance in his career in order to get as much respect in rap that he has in acting at the moment, if he could keep putting out albums on the same level as "Lost and Found" it's possible that could very much happen, it's all up to him though and really I shouldn't worry much about Eminem 'cause his creativity's burned out, he won't be a factor 10 years from now....

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Its hard to say really. LL's music seems to be a bit more popular these days and he does get albums out a lot quicker, but saying that Will wont give up any time soon. he'll just keep going, i dont know enough about LL to know how ambitious and hard working he is.

As for the acting Will will go for longer, LL isnt really a household name as in acting, i could barely name any of his movies, anybody could name at least 5 will smith films.

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Its hard to say really. LL's music seems to be a bit more popular these days and he does get albums out a lot quicker, but saying that Will wont give up any time soon. he'll just keep going, i dont know enough about LL to know how ambitious and hard working he is.

As for the acting Will will go for longer, LL isnt really a household name as in acting, i could barely name any of his movies, anybody could name at least 5 will smith films.

But not everybody could name all Will's albums but they all know that LL released 12 albums....

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First of all longetivity has nothing to do with battle! One of the reason why LL and Will are still topping the boxoffice(KRS, Rakim don't) after 20 years is their acting career. They aren' t just focussed on hip hop audience, also pop, television, movie and fashion audiences buy their albums.

To the Eminem thing...I don't think that Will responded just with the one line of Mr. Niceguy.

If you look closely on Lost and Found its indirectly packed with ether directed to Em (e.g Lost and Found the track). Also i think that Will would have never came back that strong if Eminem did not diss him, maybe he would have finished his rap career after born to reign. You can compare to this LL. Everytime people dissed him and thougt he fell off ... he released his best albums(mama said knock you out/G.O.A.T)

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Some people say that "Born To Reign" was an Eminem diss track 'cause you could see the way Will's mocking Eminem's flow on that track, too bad that never came out as a single, the thing is that both LL and Will had to overcome a lot of haters to get where they're at today, they could've easily folded like Hammer and other big names at the time 15 years ago but they percervered, they both had albums that were trashed critically and failed to sell well but they came back, LL gets dissed for making love songs Will gets dissed for not cursing, it just seems that rappers like Biggie and 2Pac get more recognition than they do 'cause of the harder images, Rakim ain't popular today 'cause he hasn't even make anything new since '99, he went platinum in '97, I heard he's politicing for a new label for a new album he's working on, who knows he might come back strong if he's gonna do songs with Nas, his career ain't over yet, KRS isn't popular 'cause he ain't on a major label after Jive dropped him years ago but his music's still more critically among rap heads, he just can't appeal to the pop audience and he don't care either, even if only 100 people buy his album 10 years from now he'll be still making music while Eminem and 50 Cent'll be long gone once they can't make any more money from it...

I think the thing that'd get Will more respect as a rapper is if he released a track like "Lost and Found" or "Don't Say Nothin'" as a single, it'd show the world that he's not as soft of a rapper that they think he is, it'd do wonders for him that "Mama Said Knock You Out" did for LL's career, I want something like that as his lead single on his next album, he should get with Jazzy and do a "Somethin' Like Dis" at all of the promo shows, the thing is that I think that I think an album like "Lost and Found" would've made a bigger impact on the rap game if it was released 5 years earlier, probably all 3 million who bought "Willenium" would check for it , Eminem wouldn't be as big as he is now, that'd be like if LL waited 5 years to release "The G.O.A.T.", Canibus would be a large name and "The G.O.A.T." wouldn't do much impact, spending all that time on movies has been a burden on his rap career but I think most rappers from the '80s would trade places with Will in an instance, going platinum is nothing to cry over but expectations have been set so high especially with the mega success of his acting career, LL's not quite as famous with acting as Will so you wouldn't expect him to sell 3 million each time but Will should be able to since he's a household name...

Edited by bigted
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But not everybody could name all Will's albums but they all know that LL released 12 albums....

Actually, it's pretty unlikely that "they all know that LL released 12 albums." Also, in keeping with the notion that "not everybody could name all Will's albums," not everyone could name all of LL's albums.

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Well I was forgetting that more people bought Will's albums, he sold over 30 million worldwide while LL sold about 20 million worldwide but the way that LL gets more mainstream attention as a rapper than Will you'd thought it was the opposite 'cause they always talk about LL's rap longevity but they don't talk about Will's rap longevity, they usually say the actor who used to rap referring to Will rather than rapper/actor, MTV said that if LL retired 10 years ago he'd still be mentioned on their top 10 MC list, Will's been more consistant and they don't mention him, there seems to be a lot of closet Will Smith fans, lol, but since Will's films all gross over $100 million each as as an actor he might have to sell 60 million albums to get more attention as a rapper...

Edited by bigted
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Yeah LL hasn't really criticised gangsta rap as much as Will has and that actually helped him stay in the game a long time, he just makes great music and stays in his own lane and not criticise what the next man is doing, and the thing is though that people find Will hypocritical, I mean Will criticises rappers for bragging about how much money they have but what did he do when he responded to Eminem? "Big Will with another 20 mill walks right past E", basically that's Will bragging that he has more money than Eminem, is it not? That's what you come with 5 years after Eminem dissed him? Just think if he answered back in 2000, he could've ended Eminem, there'd be no D-12, no 50 Cent, or no G-Unit, it'd changed the game forever....

Actually, Will doesn't simply criticize rappers for bragging about how much money they have. He criticizes rappers for gratuitous expositions of their wealth and the lack of variety and creativity in their discourse: talking about money all the time and the things they have. Also, the "20 mill" line wasn't really bragging. It was more of a "say what you will, but I'm keeping it real and I'm still prosperous. I may not like what you say, but it doesn't seem to be hurting my success."

Will could have responded in a number of ways. He could have mentioned how good his family life is, or how much he enjoys his career, or life, etc... In this case, he had to dumb things down because for a lot of people, the only way to measure success is wealth, so he dropped the 20 mill line. He's done it in the past... the "Microsoft" line for example. However, Will's also made it clear those things he really holds as valuable in his life... he aptly entitled the track "Who Am I."

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