Jennifer Lopez

People did not like Bennifer. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck first got together in 2002, shortly after Lopez divorced her second husband, the former backup ...

The guy’s stage presence was titanic, and his catalog was full of bangers that sounded amazing on a big soundsystem in the open air. and that the title stood for “Greatest Of All Time,” I thought the title was dumb and embarrassing. LL Cool J is also doing great, “Accidental Racist” or no “Accidental Racist.” He hosted the Grammys for five years in a row, and all I can remember him doing is saying the word “hashtag” a lot, so I guess he didn’t embarrass himself too badly. Lopez sings, “All my pride is all I have,” and LL answers, “Pride is what you had, baby girl, I’m what you have.” So: You can’t have any pride if you’re in a relationship with LL Cool J? In the years after “All I Have,” neither Lopez nor LL has made it back to #1. (“Very Special” peaked at #90 on the Hot 100, and it’s Laws’ only single that reached the big chart.) Instead of putting together a cover, though, McPherson got together with the DJ and producer Ron G, and they made a beat that sampled “Very Special.” Later on, Debra Laws tried to sue Sony over that sample, but a judge threw the lawsuit out, ruling that “Very Special” had been a work made for hire and that Laws didn’t have the rights to deny its use, since Sony had cleared the sample with Laws’ label. In the late ’90s, LL was the lead on In The House, a sitcom that jumped from network to network but still managed to last four seasons. “I Need Love” was a #1 R&B hit, and it peaked at #14 on the Hot 100. When Rubin and Russell Simmons launched Def Jam as a proper record label, “I Need A Beat” was the first Def Jam record with a catalog number. (On the day of LL’s birth, the #1 song in America was the Beatles’ “ [I Need A Beat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVkaN--0ld0&ab_channel=mrpower328).” The single came out in 1984, when LL was 16. The backlash was sharp and immediate, and it coincided with a moment when Lopez and Affleck, both together and apart, were making a lot of wack shit.