LL COOL J was presented with a key to the city during the Rock The Bells Festival on Aug. 6. This is the first time the festival has been held in his hometown of Queens, and Speaker of the NYC Council Adrienne Adams presented the rap legend with a a proclamation acknowledging his influence and impact on the culture.

"Hollis, Queens was represented today at @RockTheBells as the @NYCCouncil celebrated a true Queens legend, the one and only @llcoolj! It was an honor to present him with a proclamation acknowledging his undeniable impact on hip-hop and popular culture," she wrote on Twitter.

The honor comes on the heels of LL lighting the Empire State Building cyan blue in honor of the festival's return.

"I feel like hip-hop is indisposable, and I feel like, the same reverence and deference in the way Paul McCartney gets celebrated, the way Bob Dylan gets celebrated or Mick Jagger, I feel like these artists, these kings and queens, deserve that same treatment for this art form," LL said of the festival in a statement.

Partial proceeds from ticket sales of the festival will go to the Universal Hip-Hop Museum in the Bronx. The museum will open in a 52,000-square-foot space at the Bronx Point development at Mill Pond Park, and will include gallery spaces, a black box theater, interactive exhibits and more. It's the only state chartered educational museum dedicated to celebrating and preserving local and global contributions to hip hop music and culture.