''Todd Smith'' is the eleventh studio album by American

rapper Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...

LL Cool J, released on April 11, 2006 by his label

Def Jam Recordings Def Jam Recordings (also simply known as Def Jam) is an American multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It is based in Manhattan, New York City, specializing predominantly in hip hop, contemporary R&B, soul and pop. The l ...

. It includes collaborations with Jennifer Lopez,

Pharrell Pharrell Lanscilo Williams (; born April 5, 1973) is an American record producer, rapper, singer, and songwriter. Alongside close colleague Chad Hugo, he formed the hip hop and R&B production duo the Neptunes in the early 1990s, with whom h ...

Juelz Santana LaRon Louis James (born February 18, 1982), better known by his stage name Juelz Santana, is an American rapper and member of East Coast hip hop group The Diplomats, also known as Dipset. He is best known for his appearances on Cam'ron's 2002 si ...

, Teairra Mari,

Jamie Foxx Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), known professionally as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, comedian, and singer. He became widely known for his portrayal of Ray Charles in the 2004 biographical film ''Ray'', for which he won the A ...

Ginuwine Elgin Baylor Lumpkin (born October 15, 1970), better known by his stage name Ginuwine, is an American R&B singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. He began his career as a member of Swing Mob in the early 1990s. Signing to Epic Records as a solo ...

Mary J. Blige Mary Jane Blige ( ; born January 11, 1971) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Often referred to as the " Queen of Hip-Hop Soul" and " Queen of R&B", Blige has won nine Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, four American Music Award ...

, 112, Mary Mary,

Ryan Toby City High was an American R&B/ hip hop trio consisting of rappers/singers Ryan Toby, Robbie Pardlo, and Claudette Ortiz. City High is best known for their song " What Would You Do?", which earned a Grammy nomination. Career In 2001, City Hig ...

(from City High) and

Freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...

Background

The first single is the high-intensity,

Jermaine Dupri Jermaine Dupri Mauldin (born September 23, 1972) is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, record executive, entrepreneur, and DJ. Early life Jermaine Dupri Mauldin was born on September 23, 1972, the son of Tina (Mosley) and Michael ...

produced dance track "

Control Myself "Control Myself" is a song by American rapper LL Cool J from his 12th album, ''Todd Smith'' (2006). The song was written by Jermaine Dupri, James Phillips, Ryan Toby, John Miller, Afrika Bambaataa, Arthur Baker and John Robie. The song was pro ...

", another song with singer Jennifer Lopez after their collaboration on " All I Have" on Lopez's 2002 album '' This Is Me... Then''. LL Cool J and Jennifer Lopez shot the video for "

" on January 2, 2006 at Sony Studios, New York. The video was shot by

Hype Williams Harold Williams (born August 1, 1970) is an American music video director, film director, film producer, and screenwriter. Early life Williams was born in Queens, New York. He is of mixed African-American and Honduran descent. He attended Adel ...

. Originally the song was to feature Fergie (from

The Black Eyed Peas Black Eyed Peas (also known as The Black Eyed Peas) is an American musical group consisting of rappers will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo. The group's line-up during the height of their popularity in the 2000s featured Fergie, who replaced Kim Hi ...

), however difference in terms of payment resulted in her being replaced by Jennifer Lopez. ''Todd Smith'' scored mixed reviews, although most critics enjoyed tracks "Preserve The Sexy" and "Freeze". Freeze was the album's second single and it features Lyfe Jennings. The album shipped 500,000 copies but sold just 367,000 copies. Despite the fact the album debuted at number-six, it quickly fell off in 6 weeks. LL Cool J said he will be doing his last album on Def Jam which is a sequel to ''Todd Smith''. The original title for the album was called "My Favorite Flavors" and this is the 4th album of LL's where he has appeared either shirtless, or has used a bare/exposed part of his body as the cover of the album. Producers on the project include

Scott Storch Scott Spencer Storch (born December 16, 1973) is an American record producer and songwriter. He started off as a keyboardist for the group the Roots. Early life Storch was born on Long Island, New York. He was raised in South Florida and Ph ...

Bink! Roosevelt Harrell III (born February 20, 1972) professionally known as Bink is an American hip hop producer from Norfolk, Virginia, who is noted for his work with Roc-A-Fella Records artists. His most high-profile work has been Jay-Z's critica ...

, Shea Taylor, Keezo Kane and

Trackmasters The Trackmasters are an American hip hop production duo composed of music producers Poke (Jean-Claude Olivier) and Tone (Samuel Barnes), best known for their commercial hit records in the mid-late 1990s and early 2000s. Frank "Nitty" Pimentel joi ...

. The album premiered on the Billboard charts at #6, selling 116,000 units and premiered at #79 on the UK albums chart and #40 in Canada. The album has been certified Gold by the RIAA.

Music and lyrics

''Todd Smith'' is composed of radio-friendly hip hop, with LL Cool J foregoing street material in favor of straightforward, commercial

pop-rap Pop rap (also known as pop hip-hop, hip pop, melodic hip-hop or melodic rap) is a genre of music fusing the rhythm-based lyricism of hip hop music with pop music's preference for melodious vocals and catchy tunes. This genre gained mainstrea ...

. Much of the album is built on minimalist, distilled synthesized rap, featuring thick drum swirls and bright record production. The lyrics demonstrate LL Cool J comfortably rapping slow songs exclusively aimed at the opposite sex.

Critical reception

''Todd Smith'' was met with "mixed or average" reviews from critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...

score of 51 based on 17 reviews.

Track listing

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

External links

MTV Interview regarding the album
{{Authority control 2006 albums LL Cool J albums Def Jam Recordings albums Albums produced by Bink (record producer) Albums produced by Scott Storch Albums produced by the Neptunes Albums produced by Trackmasters Albums produced by Jermaine Dupri Albums produced by LL Cool J