“I Need Love” is LL Cool J’s first big hit, peaking at #14 in the US and reaching the top 10 in five European countries.

It is considered the first rap ballad to be an international success and helped expand LL’s image beyond simply being a braggart into heartthrob. Even Playgirl Magazine named him one of the ten sexiest men at the time.

The music of “I Need Love” came from a song that producer Bobcat of LA Posse had written previously titled “Friends by Day, Lovers by Night”.

Despite the success of “I Need Love”, some hip-hop artists “hated it and thought it was soft and wrong”. His reputation suffered over the next few years, bottoming out with being booed at the Apollo Theater in 1989 – an incident that would inspire the harder tracks on his 1990 album Mama Said Knock You Out.