Wanna know how Marley Marl made LL Cool J’s Mama Said Knock You Out. Just watch.
Mama Said Knock You Out was LL Cool J’s comeback track after the poor performance of Walking with a Panther in the charts and many of his hip hop peers saying he’d gone soft and too “commercial”. Mama Said Knock You Out showed them that he could still go hard and the video more than solidified the declaration in his lyrics. A comeback track like that needed an equally heavy beat to go with it. Enter DJ Bobcat and Marley Marl with their knowledge of samples and rocking beats. In the latest episode of Marley Marl’s Classic Recipes, Mister Marl talks about the origins of the beat for Mama Said Knock You Out, from the Sly sample Bobcat gave him to how he constructed the drum beat with some added tips and unheard outtake vocals from LL.
Witness history being remade in the newer digital age and stream it below.