LL Cool J soon led to an increase in multi-racial audiences and listeners, adding to the legacy of the album and hip hop as well. In 2017, LL Cool J became the first rapper to receive Kennedy Center Honors. LL Cool J James Todd Smith (born January 14, 1968), known professionally as LL Cool J (short for Ladies Love Cool James), is an American hip hop recording artist, record producer, actor, author and entrepreneur from Queens, New York. He is known for such hip hop hits as "Going Back to Cali", "I'm Bad", "The Boomin' System", "Rock the Bells" and "Mama Said Knock
Paul Smith (American actor, born 1929) appearing in a number of TV series and a few feature films in his native Australia, was billed as Paul Smith. The American actor whose career under the name Paul Smith lasted from the 1960 to the 1990s, was born in 1936 and died in 2012. Distinctive for his imposing size and hulking, occasionally bearded persona, he began acting in 1960, but the great majority of his credits are from the 1970s and 1980s, with a few stretching into the 1990s (billed as "Paul Smith" in his final credit, 1999's "D.R.E.A.M. Team"). Although on at least one occasion (in 1963)