LL Cool J Stands By His Creation of ‘G.O.A.T.’ Acronym on ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers’

During his July 23 appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, LL Cool J didn't back down about starting the G.O.A.T. phrase. He cited two giants, boxing titan Muhammad Ali and street basketball wizard Earl Manigault, as the sparks behind his idea.

"Claim? Claim? Claim? Interesting way to phrase that — claim," LL Cool J fired back, when asked about making up the term.

The music star traced the term's first official use to his 2000 release G.O.A.T. featuring James T. Smith: The Greatest of All Time. The album, which hit the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart, featured collaborations with top stars like DMX, Snoop Dogg, and Method Man.

Reportedly, he mixed two ideas to make the famous phrase. "I'll tell you how I got it. I got Greatest of All Time from Muhammad Ali, and I got G.O.A.T. from Earl Manigault, who was a street basketball player in New York. I took the two together, and I made the acronym G.O.A.T. — Greatest of All Time, and then it just kind of spread throughout the world," the "Take It Off" singer revealed.

His 1997 song "4,3,2,1" from the Phenomenon album first dropped the phrase. The lyrics went: "Watch your mouth, don't ever step out of line / LL Cool J, ni**a, greatest of all time."

This isn't the star's first time speaking up on how he coined the term. In a chat with Metro UK last year, he confirmed that "there's no question" that he did come up with the acronym first. "It's pretty wild that it turned out how it did," he shared. "I had no idea it was gonna become a worldwide phrase and statement."

While he never trademarked or got legal rights to the term, he sees its global spread as a sign of his impact. "What it says to me is that I can do more creatively," he expressed. "It says to me, if I'm capable of creating terminology for the entire globe, I can do some big things."

Now the term pops up everywhere — in sports talk, music circles, and online posts about the best of the best. The Queens-born artist started making waves in 1985 with Radio, his debut album that gave us hits like "I Can't Live Without My Radio" and "Rock The Bells."