"I Need Love" is the second single from LL Cool J's second album, Bigger and Deffer.

The single won a Soul Train Music Award for Best Rap Single in 1988 Soul Train Music Awards.

The music, both melody and beats, were lifted from an instrumental by Brooklyn songwriter Jayson Dyall entitled "Zoraida's Heartbeat" which was written and recorded in 1984.

[17] This song, along with other songs on a cassette tape of several raw recordings by Jayson Dyall, was presented to LL Cool J by an associate, who met Dyall through a music classifieds ad in early 1986 and told him he could get LL to listen to his music.

Dyall never received any acknowledgment from LL Cool J or Def Jam Records for originally writing the music for this song.