LL Cool J at Universal: Everyman as Entertainer

Only a couple of years ago, LL Cool J was the teen-age B-boy Everyman, a rapper like all the kids in the audience knew they could be if they just had a producer and a decent beat box. He wasn’t a suave fellow insinuating his prowess with the “freaks,” he was a guy just like them: bragging about his radio, a guy with a serious crush on his baby-sitter. Filtered through the veil of his naivete, LL’s arrogance came across as rather sweet, really.

These days, LL seems more determined to entertain his audience than to represent them, and the slick revue at the Universal Amphitheatre on Thursday took place on a sleek mirrored stage set that looked something like a high-tech Midwest airport lounge. There were lasers, jets of flame, fireworks, a Ferrari--and he pulled on a big bottle of Evian the way David Lee Roth used to pull on a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

The set was well-rehearsed, his articulation was clean, he swept you through his hits without the slightest feeling of involvement on his part. And during the rendition of his current hit “I’m Leaving You,” whose sensitive refrain goes “Brenda has a big ol’ butt / So I’m leaving you,” the laser limned bouncing buns on a screen above LL’s head. Talk about rear-screen projection.

After a curiously abbreviated set by De La Soul, Slick Rick, wearing enough gold chains to choke a hippo, descended from a giant throne just long enough to slink through the sleaze classic “La Di Da Di” (which he wrote for Doug E. Fresh) and highlights from his platinum debut album in his patented island-tinged whine.

The three acts will be joined by Eazy-E/N.W.A and Too Short at the San Diego Sports Arena on Sunday.