Everyone is so busy with their highfalutin proclamations of bad bitchery that they seem to have forgotten about the original bad bitch of hip-hop, Lil' Kim.
While the planet is seemingly caught in an infinite feedback loop of kvetching and swooning in equal measure about Nicki Minaj's outrageous behavior and body modifications, we must not forget how integral Lil' Kim was in forging that particular bit, a bit Minaj essentially bit directly from Lil' Kim.
Truly, the self-proclaimed "Queen Bitch" herself is the Beatles of outrageous women in the game. For those of you who have lost touch, forgotten, or failed to recognize the alpha that is Lil' Kim, let's consider a few things.
Kim, born Kimberly Denise Jones in Brooklyn, New York, many years before it was a gentrified hipster hive, is the authentic article when it comes to the lifestyle her music depicts. She came up with the Junior M.A.F.I.A., was Biggie's righthand woman. While we here at New Times devote countless hours and bandwidth to pulling back those sheets that cover rapper Stitches' leaky backstory as a cocaine kingpin, Kim's mettle has never been in question.
Sure, plenty of rappers go to jail, but few have turned such a gigantic rotten lemon like a stint at Club Fed into the sort of lemonade Kim yielded from her own stay. She made her last 14 days before incarceration into a TV program -- one that also became BET's most-watched series premiere of all time. From the pen, Kim then went on to release The Naked Truth, an album that made her the first woman to ever garner a five-mic rating from The Source. Truly a badass, no?
Musically, Kim's style has also become the stuff of legend, to the point there have been actual college courses taught on her lyricism at Syracuse University. Hell, she's even collaborated with Phil Collins! OK, there are probably no extra gangsta-cred points for that last one, but the track was pretty rad. Even now, Kim's list of collaborators and the company she keeps speak volumes that the new guard just can't hold up to.
Catch the real Queen Bee at the Manor this weekend celebrating the birthday of her personal assistant, best friend, and Miami native Noel Perez.
Lil' Kim. 9 p.m. Saturday, October 4, at the Manor, 2345 Wilton Drive, Wilton Manors. Tickets cost $15. Call 954-626-0082, or visit themanorcomplex.com.
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