Bigger and Deffer

Album (1987) by rapper L.L. Cool J; features "I Need Love" and "I'm Bad." "I Need Love" is by no means the first rap love song. The Sugarhill Gang—who made the first rap hit "Rapper's Delight" in 1979—had also had a hit three years earlier with "The Lover in You." Compared to this one—as well as to Whodini's "You Take My Breath Away"—"I Need Love" is rather sappy. Other songs on the album are worth noting. "The Bristol Hotel" is about a factual location and the plight of the hookers who frequent it. "The Do-Wop" and "Go Cut Creator Go" both feature 50s rock-n-roll backgrounds. Finally, "The Breakthrough" is a singularly harsh song which—unlike the seven which precede it on the album—has a hard, stiff beat and contains a single, lengthy verse not interrupted by a chorus. As the song immediately preceding "I Need Love," it serves as a kind of "bridge" to that song, in which he must "use up" the hardness inside him before expressing his more tender side.