POP MUSIC SPECIAL : Too Cool For Comfort? : After alienating fans with an uptown image, rapper L.L. Cool J gets back to the street in his new album

Rap hero L.L. Cool J still remembers the moment last year when he took a look at the cover of his last album, “Walking With a Panther,” and didn’t like what he saw.

There was a picture of him, living large with his cellular phone at his ear, his trademark Kangol threads and gold chains, champagne and three drop-dead gorgeous women.

Recalling the moment recently, the 22-year-old New Yorker said the image bothered him so much that he began to re-evaluate both his music and his life.

“You can’t get caught up with what you think is cool,” he says now. “You have to take into consideration what other people feel.

“I think I was doing that up to the point where I put out that ‘Panther’ album . . . but then I went off the deep end with champagne and girls . . . thinking people liked to see me (that way). But that’s not right. They like my music. What does that (photo) have to do with rap and the street? That wasn’t me.”

He wasn’t the only one troubled by the image. Some fans, too, seemed put off.

Sales of “Panther” exceeded a million copies--still enough to keep it on the charts, but disappointing when measured against the 6 million combined sales of his two earlier albums.

L.L. had dazzled the New York world as a teen-ager in 1985 with his innovative blend of smart rhymes with a tough rocker’s edge. Even more than Run-DMC, he looked like the one who’d unite the rap and rock communities: the first superstar of rap.

But things change fast on the rap scene and there was already loud whispering after the release of “Panther” that L.L. had blown it. One problem: Much of the sexual bravado and egocentric boasting that had sounded so commanding originally were now bordering on parody. If you couldn’t hear it in the raps, you could see it in that album photo.

On the title cut of his new “Mama Said Knock You Out” album, L.L. warns against calling the new release a comeback, but there’s no other way to look at it.

The self-evaluation of the last year is evident from the stark black-and-white cover photo of his bare torso (the heavy gold chain and huge “Cool J” ring smack more of defiance than decadence) to the raps themselves.

The most notable of the latter is the self-mocking “Cheesy Rat Blues,” in which a character named Todd recounts the dangers of an ego out of control. Also significant is the closing “The Power of God,” a distinct contrast to the boasts that still characterize many of his raps, including the leering “Milky White Cereal,” a remix of “Jingling Baby” and the M.C. Hammer dis of “To Da Break of Dawn.”

And everybody’s talking about the album in terms of comeback. Rolling Stone magazine’s review of the album noted that L.L. “needed to change his rap this time” and had done so to great effect. The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau, awarding the album an A grade, called it the product of a “proud pro with something to prove.”

While not everyone agrees that “Mama” is a step forward (see reviews on Page 59), the public appears impressed. The album has shot to No. 17 in its third week on the national pop charts.

“It’s flattering for people to say comeback and veteran and pioneer ,” the rapper said. “I don’t want those trophies, the longevity and comeback trophies. I just want people to know I’ve been here for years and continue to make my music.

“When Mike Tyson gets his belt back and they call it a comeback that’s not disrespect. But don’t call it a comeback,

good or bad.”

L.L. Cool J has been compared to a young Muhammad Ali, and not just for the brash personality. He’s a nimble poet who can mesmerize you with clever wordplay before sending you to the canvas with a punch you never saw coming.

Though his best work has been collaborative (such as his 1985 debut, produced by Rick Rubin, and his partnership with Marley Marl for the new album), L.L. is something of a lone wolf in hip-hop.

He’s one of the last practitioners of the old-school style that’s based more in competitive street-corner rhyming than studio craft. And though he says he’s largely abandoned his heavy jewelry, he hasn’t replaced it with the Afrika medallions and attendant cultural consciousness that now pervade the rap world.

“Nothing wrong with African-American political consciousness, but you have to feel it from the heart,” he said. “I know I’m black and do what I do from the heart. But I’m in the world of L.L. and that’s all I concentrate on.”

L.L. was raised in St. Albans, Queens, just blocks from the members of Run-DMC. Turned on by the early raps of groups like the Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, he was making up raps by the time he was 9.

In his early teens his grandfather gave him deejay equipment--instead of the dirt bike he really wanted--and L.L. began making demo tapes in his basement. He sent one to fledgling producer and New York University student Rick Rubin, who had just founded the Def Jam label with Russell Simmons. Def Jam released the single “I Need a Beat” by 16-year-old L.L. and then the debut album “Radio,” the label’s first.

From the start, L.L. had a reputation of having a major chip on his shoulder.

Even today he still boasts in interviews. An example: “I’m a mercenary, just in the jungle and I

don’t feel nobody’s behind me or in front of me. I’m Rambo, just going for myself.”

That self-image carries through all aspects of his art, but he says his reputation of being egotistical is a misconception.

“If you’re broke and don’t have money and you’re proud and confident, you’re just proud and confident,” he said. “When you have money, if you’re proud and confident you’re arrogant. . . . I believe in God. He’s my confidence. It doesn’t come from arrogance.

“I never had a chip on my shoulder. I’m just a realistic person and answer questions real. I don’t candy-coat answers just so they’ll be pleasurable to listen to. The only thing I candy-coat is the music, to make it pleasurable to listen to.”

Indeed, some of the best punches on the new album land on L.L. himself.

Everybody laughing at my corny jokes,

I was stupid, I thought that they were sincere folks,

It turns out they’re like the money and the fame

They find you’re paid, I be that nobody James

The nobody who dreamed about being somebody,

Chief rocker at the party ...

I didn’t notice all the trickles of laughter,

Too busy with the female telling me I’m the master.

--from “Cheesy Rat Blues.”

Refering to the words of “Cheesy Rat,” L.L. says, “I’m talking about the things that can happen if I believed the hype. . . . I don’t mind being the butt of jokes.”

Sure enough, his cockiness is now tempered with maturity and perspective.

“Everybody gets a little smarter in four or five years,” he said, shrugging off the notion of a radical transformation. “But you’re always still the same individual. When you commit a crime, five years later you’re not innocent. But, of course, you learn and grow.”

The process is leading L.L. into a new phase of his life and career. He promises a “simple and cold-blooded” show for an upcoming concert tour. “I can tell you what it won’t be,” he said. “It won’t be corny. I’m just going out to wreck heads.”

Now that he’s back on track musically, L.L. is looking to acting. He’s got a sizable role as an undercover cop in the comic thriller “The Hard Way,” starring Michael J. Fox and James Woods and scheduled for an Easter release. This is his second film appearance, following a role as a young rapper in the hip-hop musical “Krush Groove” when he was 17.

With typical confidence, he downplays the difficulty of pop stars trying to move into movies.

“I don’t really call it acting,” he said. “I’m not an actor. I’m a strange individual. I just do what I got to do. It was cool.”

Will he do more film work?

“Who knows? If something good comes along. The only reason I did this is I want people to see me and wonder who I am and get into my music.”

Is he running out of challenges at age 22?

“There’s a lot left,” he said, taken aback by the question. “An incredible amount. Unbelievable! You got people like the Rolling Stones--how many albums they have? I’ve only got four. Let’s be realistic. . . . I’m not ready for Geritol just yet.”