| "Going Back to Cali" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by LL Cool J | ||||
| from the album Less than Zero and Walking with a Panther | ||||
| B-side | "Jack the Ripper" | |||
| Released | January 27, 1988 | |||
| Recorded | 1987 | |||
| Genre | Golden age hip hop | |||
| Length | 3:57 | |||
| Label | Def Jam | |||
| Songwriter(s) | ||||
| Producer(s) | Rick Rubin | |||
| LL Cool J singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "Going Back to Cali" on YouTube | ||||
"Going Back to Cali" is a 1988 single by LL Cool J from the Less than Zero soundtrack album as well as his third album, Walking with a Panther. The song was co-written and produced by Rick Rubin. It peaked at No. 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #12 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, and was eventually certified gold by the RIAA on May 28, 1991, and platinum on May 30, 2017.
The song features LL Cool J vacillating about moving to California, rapping in the chorus, "I'm going back to Cali", followed by "I don't think so". In the verses, he describes a trip to Los Angeles in which he meets several women but is scared off because they are too sexually aggressive. The basic concept for the song was Rubin's, based on his own ambivalence about possibly moving from New York City to Los Angeles.[1]
The b-side is "Jack The Ripper", a diss track aimed at Kool Moe Dee, as a response to Moe Dee's "How Ya Like Me Now".
- ^ Aushenker, Michael (December 31, 2013). "'Going Back to Cali,' again: In December 1987, a then 20-year-old L.L. Cool J filmed an artsy black-and-white rap video on Venice Beach". Argonaut News.