It’s been 40 years since LL Cool J first dropped “Rock The Bells,” the third single of the legendary New York City rapper’s 1985 debut album, Radio. Now, the Rick Rubin-produced song that’s become LL Cool J’s calling card has finally received the official music video treatment. Released today, February 21, the black-and-white visual goes back to the streets of the city that made him with a cast of subway dancers, local MCs, and street performers rapping the lyrics to the track.
Since its release in 1985, “Rock The Bells” never had a music video (though that didn’t stop fans from creating their own online). The idea of finally getting a visual together came recently, just in time for the song’s 40th anniversary.
The video’s director Gregory Brunkalla tells The FADER in an exclusive statement: “I pitched LL this idea of having real [New Yorkers] rap lyrics all over the city and he thought it would be perfect to celebrate the 40th anniversary of ‘Rock The Bells’ which came out in 1985. I think it works so well because it’s a song so many people already know. On the day we were filming the shot in the basketball court, we showed up to the location and a random Jeep drove by with the windows down blasting ‘Rock The Bells’ — that’s some crazy synchronicity. Makes you feel like things are truly lining up!”
LL Cool J outside a concert, 1986.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Over the rapper’s four decades-long career, spanning 14 albums and countless hits, “Rock The Bells” has endured as Cool J’s biggest hit. The track’s title isn’t a reference to actual bells but rather a nod to a popular phrase that meant “spreading the word” that was percolating among old-school rappers and mixtapes on the streets of N.Y.C. at the time. “It was a phrase that was creeping around,” Cool J once told Entertainment Weekly of the track.
The original recording of the song was seven minutes long, but Cool J, unhappy with how it sounded, pestered producer Rick Rubin to redo it by re-engineering the beat with samples from ACDC’s “Flick The Switch” and Cerrone’s “Rocket In My Pocket” — a wise decision as it ultimately hit No. 17 on the Billboard Hip-Hop chart at the time.
In the years since the song’s title has been adapted by Cool J for music festivals, tours, and as the name of his classic hip-hop SiriusXM radio station, launched in 2018.
