LL Cool J performs at Chase Center in San Francisco on Sept. 1, 2023. Matt Pang/STAFF. SAN FRANCISCO — LL Cool J brought out some of the best of old school hip-hop for his F.O.R.C.E. tour stop at Chase Center on Friday. The headliner topped a bill that included…

Janis Joplin in 1970, courtesy Wikicommons. This is, somehow, inexplicably, the weekend before Thanksgiving. I was pretty sure it was an unusually cold August but I triple-checked the calendar and it’s definitely late November. Time is weird. Since my column runs on Saturday, that means this is also my…

Insert Foot vs. Iron Maiden haters. If you didn’t notice, it’s time to get hysterical again over Rock and Roll Hall of Fame selections. I don’t get a say in the critic’s vote, which I accepted a long time ago. One doesn’t give Metallica’s St. Anger a positive review…

  So dreamy Double-length edition again! I try to keep to my rules, but it was looking I’d have to cut either Sex Packets or Flood, and I’m just not going to do that. Turns out way too many of my favorite albums came out in 1990 to cut anything. And,…

LL Cool J performs during the Kings of the Mic Tour at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif. on May 25, 2013. Roman Gokhman/STAFF. LL Cool J may be one of the elder statesmen of rap, rhyming since his 1985 platinum debut, but he has been out of the…

LL Cool J, courtesy. Last week I interviewed rapper-actor-Grammy host LL Cool J. The big issue swirling around him lately has been the controversy over “Accidental Racist,” the song he recorded with country singer Brad Paisley. I briefly go into that in my story. But since space is at…