When he first dropped he was untouchable, a brash young kid that was a force of nature.

But he was very quickly lapped by better lyricists and fell victim somewhat to being ahead of his time with Walking With a Panther.

Then the big comeback album with Mama Said...and then coasted for a few years with a few hit singles here and there.

But overall he's had a pretty middle of the road career. He's not a supreme lyricist, not a monster hit maker, no interesting back story and hardly ever set any trends in hiphop other than making cats step their pen game up way back in the 80's.

The Drake comparison isn't fair because LL has never had a run anywhere near as long as Drake for one thing, and love him or hate him, Drake left a ton of clones in his wake (I know he himself bit the style he ran with but it's effectively his shit now, sorry)