Jermaine Dupri-produced dance track "Control Myself" served as the album's lead single. Another song with singer Jennifer Lopez after their collaboration on "All I Have" on Lopez's 2002 album This Is Me... Then, it was originally to feature Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas; however difference in terms of payment resulted in her being replaced by Lopez. LL Cool J and Lopez shot a music video for "Control Myself," directed by Hype Williams, on January 2, 2006 at Sony Studios, New York. "Freeze" featuring Lyfe Jennings was released as the album's second single.
Music and lyrics
Todd Smith is composed of radio-friendly hip hop, with LL Cool J foregoing street material in favor of straightforward, commercial pop-rap.[1] Much of the album is built on minimalist, distilled synthesized rap, featuring thick drum swirls and bright record production.[2] The lyrics demonstrate LL Cool J comfortably rapping slow songs exclusively aimed at the opposite sex.[3][2]
Todd Smith was met with "mixed or average" reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 51 based on 17 reviews.[4]AllMusic found that "the album proves that Cool James always has and always will have wit and style to spare" and while he "makes few pretenses to being street, Todd Smith is straight commercial pop-rap," resulting into "solid radio-friendly hip-hop from a veteran of the genre."[1] Michael Frauenhofer from PopMatters described the album as "adequate [...] glossy, safe, front-loaded, and slick. My mom likes it, enough said. And the young-girl LL Cool J fans will love it too, regardless of what we say here. As for the rest of us? We can go home, we can play "Mama Said Knock You Out" and "Rock the Bells" on our stereos, and we can wait for his next inevitable metamorphosis."[7]
Entertainment Weekly's Tom Sinclair criticized the album for its "big-name-guest-star-choked affairs" and wrote: "Too bad LL Cool J feels he needs the extra wattage, because Todd Smith's best moments come when he raps alone, letting his inimitably confident flow shine. Some of these jams will no doubt click with the club crowd, but we wish our man would jettison the human baggage, team up with his old producer Rick Rubin, and knock us out again."[6] Similarly, Rolling Stone critic Peter Relic remarked: "Eight of thirteen tracks on Todd Smith qualify as slow-jam duets, and none of them has a sweat droplet of the appeal of 1987's LL-as-Lothario classic "I Need Love" [...] leaving one wondering whatever happened to the immortal MC who could carry an album by himself without needing a breath."[9]
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