It’s not like he wasn’t making music at the time. “I’ve always dabbled in the studio here and there,” he told The Associated Press over Zoom. But in the last two or so years, the inspiration really kicked in. He began working with a producer and pursuing music-making more seriously.

Then he hit a roadblock. “I thought the tracks this producer was giving me were better than the songs I had written,” he said. Then the late Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest came to him in a dream. “He told me, ‘Dude, this new music you’re working on is awesome.’ But he had this Cheshire Cat-like expression on his face, like he was lying to me,” he said.

It was a wake-up call — and someone told him to bring in Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest to collaborate. The move worked: Q-Tip produced every track and made all the beats on “The Force,” which will be released Sept. 16.

LL Cool J described the process of creating his 14th studio album as “I went back to the drawing board and learned how to rap again … made sure I was really inspired by what I was saying. That’s why there’s not a lot of trash on this album.”

“LeBron, Steph, Jordan and Kobe, they all go back to the drawing board, they’re always trying to make themselves better,” he added. “I wasn’t trying to be trendy, and I wasn’t trying to recreate what I did before.”

“The Force” is an inventive rap record inspired by LL Cool J’s long career that touches on a variety of topics, such as the power of self-motivation, full-force swag, unsafe sexuality at work and cautionary tales, as evident in the lead single, “Saturday Night Special,” featuring Rick Ross and Fat Joe.

Particularly impressive is the one-two punch of “Huey in the Chair” — a reference to a famous photo of Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton — which the rapper describes as “taking a stand for what you believe in,” to the funky downtown beats of “Basquiat Energy,” which celebrates the eponymous artist’s innovative spirit. The rapper says the American icons share the ability to “express their personal truth,” something he aimed to do on this album.

As such, “The Force”, meaning “frequencies of true creative energy”, became an unofficial mantra for the release.

“That’s what we wanted to present to the world,” he said. “It’s about the desire to vibrate at a higher level.”

And after hip-hop’s 50th anniversary last year, LL Cool J says he “wanted to show people that artists who have had long careers can make modern contributions to hip-hop that have a big impact. I’ve never seen that before. That was another challenge: Can I make something that feels new and fresh?”

He’s not leaning into cynicism here – expect to hear rappers actually rapping – but no one should mistake this for a nostalgia play. The album also features a number of others besides Ross, Fat Joe, Saweetie and Eminem: Snoop Dogg, Sonja Jobreth, Busta Rhymes, Nas, Mad Squabblez, JS.AND and Don Pablito among them.

“One of the things I wanted to do is I wanted to meet people where I am right now. I wasn’t trying to preach,” he said. “I’m not trying to tell people how they should live. I wanted to express to people where I am artistically at this point in my life and give that to them. And then they can take it and do whatever they want with it.”

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