Walking with a Panther

After the international success of “I Need Love”, LL was both internationally praised and shunned. The self-proclaimed ‘hard as hell’ rapper had revealed a tender side in the song and some hip-hop artists “hated it and thought it was soft and wrong”. However, top 40 fans (and record executives) looked forward to LL repeating the formula. Therefore, LL’s third album became a dichotomy of songs loaded with the familiar braggadocio about rap skills and success with ladies, peppered with further attempts at a ballad to replicate the success of “I Need Love”.

The album’s first official single was “I’m That Type Of Guy” (note that “Goin' Back To Cali” had been released as a single a full year prior to the album and featured on the Less Than Zero film soundtrack). “Guy” topped the Rap Chart and peaked at #15 on the US pop chart, just one slot lower than “I Need Love” had reached one year prior. The song also found mainstream success in New Zealand and the UK.

Walking With A Panther was immediately successful upon release, peaking at #6 in the US and certified platinum within two months.

Three more singles followed including “One Shot At Love” – one of Walking With A Panther’s three attempts at repeating the success of “I Need Love”. But they achieved only mild success on the Rap and R&B Charts in the US.

A 1989 Rolling Stone review noted that the album’s songs “basically cover the same turf as Bigger and Deffer” and, in the then-developing hip hop landscape of social issues, asked “Is being the boaster with the mostest enough?” The Courier-Journal called the album “Even Bigger And Even Deffer”, noting “much of the material seems recycled from Cool J’s last LP” and commenting that “the gimmick isn’t fresh anymore”.

On August 22, 1989, USA Today noted “the growing division between rappers like LL Cool J, who are crossing over into a huge pop audience, and purists like Kool Moe Dee, concerned about social issues confronting rap’s traditional fans”. He was criticized as lazy, as a sellout, and out of touch with the current climate of hip hop. In 1990, Entertainment Weekly noted that the only part of the album that touched on social issues was in its liner notes.

LL toured in 1989-1990 on his Nitro Tour with “a revolving door of openers” including EPMD, Big Daddy Kane, NWA, Public Enemy, Too Short and De La Soul. However, LL’s reputation was declining as the fresher sound of his opening acts was taking off, with fans throwing objects at him at an outdoor concert. His decline hit bottom when he was booed at a Harlem rally. In 1990, Sonic Youth member Kim Gordon (a then-fan of LL Cool J) interviewed LL for Spin Magazine and found him to be shallow, sharing her feelings about the experience in the song “Kool Thing”.

These events inspired LL to come back harder and fresher on his follow-up, the Grammy-winning album Mama Said Knock You Out, a title (and song) inspired by a conversation LL had with his grandmother who told him to ‘knock out’ the critics who panned his previous album. Though the song begins with the line “Don’t call it a comeback”, many felt Mama Said Knock You Out actually was a comeback from his slump and showed a growth that Walking With A Panther did not exhibit.