Lil Kim Defenestrates Nicki Minaj on "Black Friday": Commentary and Lessons Learned

Lil Kim Black Friday (full) by WhatsTheT.com

In 1998, Canibus engaged in an ill advised feud with LL Cool J based around someone in his camp thinking it advisable for the Brooklyn lyrical acrobat to go after a self-proclaimed hip hop G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time). At the time, LL was beginning his transformation from tough lyricist who battle rapped Kool Moe Dee for the better part of a decade into a ripped and jacked Chippendale lover man, giving Canibus to space to believe he could compete. Canibus opened fire on LL’s own “4,3,2,1” wanting to “rip the mic off of (LL’s) ya shoulder and let a real MC rock it.” LL tried to make a comeback in his sixteen bar coda on the track, but, he had indeed been served by the upstart. Canibus’ “Second Round Knock Out” was produced by Wyclef and even involved Mike Tyson on the track, and it incensed LL to record “The Ripper is Back,” in which he systematically insulted both him (“I’m everything you ever wanted to be”) and Wyclef (“you Bob Marley imposter”), and left the rapper in career ruins.

I tell that story only to serve as background for what will likely be the eventual pop sheltering of Nicki Minaj after being roundly roasted in the most definitive second round knockout in hip hop history, Kim’s post-Thanksgiving release, “Black Friday.” I was once advised by a friend to “never fight an ugly person.” Kim comes from a lyrical school of low blow artists. She was there and likely saw the look on Biggie’s face when Tupac betrayed their friendship for career advancement and released “Hit Em Up.” There’s no two ways about it, when a man tells another man “I fucked your wife, you fat motherfucker,” it’s gonna do a little bit more than sting. Needless to say, Kim knows how to dig deep and get dirty for a response. As with everything about her, she learned from the best.

Kim’s at present unsigned to a major label. She embarked on a multi-city concert tour this year that, much like her show in Baltimore that TGRI covered, was done to quarter filled 1200 capacity rooms, while Nicki Minaj, who in many ways is an unabashed Kim clone, is signing 360 deals, being managed by Puff Daddy, and preparing to sell 400,000 units with a debut album of a lyrical quality that couldn’t compare to Kim at her prime. Minaj is likely aware of the specter of Lil Kim at every turn in her career ascension. I’d imagine it gets infuriating to be compared to someone you probably respected, but in having precious little creative control of your career must emulate or be left with absolutely nothing. Her lyrics on “Monster” and “Roman’s Revenge” are arguably two of her best lyrical performances of her career, as by comparison the rest of her lyrical canon is not as strong. Initially dissing Lil Kim was a necessity for Minaj to arrest the spotlight. I’m presuming the “Roman’s Revenge” was completed long before it’s release, and was part of the “Diss Lil Kim” part of Nicki’s team’s strategy to go straight to the top. As we can now clearly note with “Black Friday,”its release was likely a bad move.

“Monster” awoke a sleeping giant. In 1997, Lil Kim was argued by many to be the greatest female emcee of all time. This is a time that included Monie Love, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa and Roxanne Shante. At a time, Lil Kim, considered better than all of them. In 2010, Nicki Minaj is considered by many to be the best emcee in a long time. Key difference. Monie Love and MC Lyte are on the classic rapper tour circuit. Latifah is an outed lesbian smooching the night away on cruise liners. Salt loves Jesus and Pepa is a writer. Roxanne Shante has a disputed Masters degree from Cornell. Even further, Foxy Brown is in and out of incarceration for smacking down nail technicians. It’s not as if they’re even battling on the same field. Upon noting the titanic force of her career ascension, Minaj’s team should have scrapped “Roman’s Revenge,” replaced it with a Kim and Nicki track, and maybe contacted the emcee about doing a concert tour together with her second generation clone.

For fans of hip hop, Lil Kim just ethered Nicki Minaj. For fans of pop, there’s an angry black midget that used to be cool coming after their latest superheroine. Luckily, for Minaj’s short term career growth, fans of pop music still buy albums and concert tickets. However as has been stated on this site before, a great deal of Minaj’s marketing is built around the idea that she straddles the pop and hip hop world evenly. With one eight minute marathon diss, her hold on hip hop, not tight at all.

The moral of this story? Don’t get into a fight with an ugly person, they absolutely have less to lose.

REVIEWED: Lil Kim/Poca the Papergirl/Gang – 6/5/10 – Sonar, Baltimore

“Brooklyn, home of the greatest rappers
BIG comes first, then the Queen comes after”
– Lil Kim, “Lighters Up”

“This is the f*** Nicki Minaj segment of the show.”
– Lil Kim’s hypeman, Saturday night at Sonar in Batimore

Lil Kim is an iconic figure of hip hop’s history. Very troubled yet very successful, the “diamond cluster hustler” is legendary. Her blend of potent lyricism, frank sexuality and obsessive compulsive attraction to the accouterments of beauty, wealth and fame made her a feminist touch point and landmark artist in music history. A plethora of artists likely would not be able to exist as fully formed concepts without her, as she is absolutely worthy of her self proclaimed “Queen Bitch” status. However, it has been nearly fifteen years since her acclaimed and industry shattering debut Hard Core, and in 2010, Kim’s ability to fend off pretenders to her throne has finally been called into question. Queens emcee Nicki Minaj, who literally is Lil Kim for a brand new generation of teens and adults has stormed into hip hop with much the same level of success as the Queen Bee did in 1995. If at this event on Saturday night, you had the amazing opportunity to see a woman terrified of passing the torch, and though seemingly irrelevant, hard at work at maintaining her hard-earned place in the annals of time.

Openers for this show were Philadelphia electro-punk power belles (with a male drummer) Gang. Together since 2006, the group brings a tight melodic structure and adept songwriting to the table. A live performance in front of a growing throng of hip hop heads really isn’t the best place for them, but in the grand tradition of rock and roll, they succeeded in gaining support and an eventual truly appreciative ovation and co-sign from their most unique audience. Having played big events already as openers in their careers, namely for a Peaches and Amanda Blank double bill in Philly on Peaches’ most recent US tour, the band rocked hard, with slight electro sensibilities, providing a thrashing good time with an element of dance. Newest single “Why Can’t You Just Be” comes off like a poppier, electroclash take on Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out,” and in covering Rage Against the Machine’s “How Could I Just Kill A Man” and lead singer Amanda Damron screaming “F*** the police!” over the chorus, they were truly the surprise, and after Kim’s wild histrionics probably the best part of the evening.

Bronx, NY’s Poca the Papergirl was solid as well. The hip hop neophyte has had rousing success as of late, adding opening for Lil Kim to a rapidly growing list of opening spots including DC’s Amerie and spots at Washington’s Black Pride Weekend as well. Rocking the crowd in front of a very gay and bisexual friendly audience, the appeal came easy, and what Poca lacks from a production standpoint, she makes up for in a frank and disarming ability to connect with an audience. The next step for her is to move from telling really fun anecdotes then rapping over pre-existing popular Southern hip hop tracks like Gucci Mane’s “Lemonade” to taking productions she can call her own and succeeding with them. The talent is there, but the package is not yet completely together for the emcee.

Headliner Lil Kim did her legacy a great disservice in just over one hour. The highlights were all the usual expected ones, as she hit the stage in belly dancer garb, the famously diminutive rapper flanked by two lithe backup dancers, a hypeman and a DJ and shimmied through a new opening number, then hit all of her high points. You forget at a point that she, alongside her mentor the Notorious B.I.G. was one of the most quotable emcees of the last decade of hip hop, and that her verses are vulgar, vitriolic and antagonistic paeans to gangsta and pimpstress style. All of the highlights from her debut, including “Crush on You” in neon day-glo wigs to match the infamous video, “Queen B****” and “Drugs,” alongside her multitude of hot singles were in tow and elicited riotous response. However, when Kim did a costume change into her fedora and sportcoat and decided to go “gangsta,” everything fell apart.

While changing, her hypeman announced this was the “F*** Nicki Minaj and F*** Drake” segment of the event. Nicki and Drake, rap’s two hottest and most name brand stars of the moment, were then ridiculed and riddled with lyrical bullets by Baltimore native Keys (aka “The Problem”), who has become an underground name of late with her shared hatred for Minaj. Kim’s stage show then included her verse in “All About the Benjamins” and a shout out to Sean Combs with a “Puffy should be ashamed of his fuckin’ self!” From there, moving on to ending the show with solid edits of other people’s material from her 2008 Ms GOAT mixtape, a less than stellar sung rendition of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “New York State of Mind,” and the most bizarre “We Are the World” tableau of all time of punk rockers, fashion voguers and hip hop hangers on seen in quite awhile partying to “Magic Stick,” the night finally ended.

Kim’s performance is a classic case of finding out who someone really is when the chips are down and they’re faced with adversity. Hip hop is not rock or soul music. As a relatively new art form, it’s truly difficult to achieve an “untouchable” legend status. A fifteen year career, especially in an over-flooded genre, really does not leave one as being beyond approach. Nicki Minaj has done just that, and while the jury is out as to whether or not she will eclipse, she has put the entire industry on alert. Her potent mix of mainstream trending style and media support makes her a hard juggernaut to stop. Lil Kim has decided to stand squarely in the path of Minaj’s artistic development, clearly without the mainstream support and media assistance she needs to even attempt making this a fair battle. Lil Kim’s an amazing and ultra important piece of hip hop history. This battle appears to be a losing one, and a pitiable one at that. Remember the greatness and excuse this digression.

Lil Kim is a legend and a hip hop soldier. Last night I watched this soldier fall on her sword.

THE HARD 10: #7 Lil Kim – Hard Core (1996)

The HARD 10 are ten of the most graphic albums ever released that all left an indelible mark upon the listener and the industry as a whole. Do enjoy these tales and songs, and carry their power into your life, finding their unrepentant aggression to be as emotionally valuable as tears.
 

4’11” Kimberly Jones from Brooklyn, NY grew up with daddy and Barbie issues. The blatant and explicit exploitation of these problems led to one of the finest albums ever created. The Notorious B.I.G. is one of the finest emcees or musical artists to EVER touch a microphone. However, let it be said that him, alongside Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs were and are masters of marketing, and that likely their finest marketing move ever was what they did with a little girl named Kim. They took her, her myriad of bizarre issues and obscene mental wanderings, and a heaping spoonful of violent female pimp swagger and turned her into the identity of Lil’ Kim, whose debut album Hard Core set a standard for hip hop that any other emcee, male or female can attempt to, but will never reach.

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The quotable and misogynistic lines on Lil’ Kim’s hardcore are numerous. The first bars we ever hear her spit on the album opener “Big Momma Thang” should’ve let us know what we were in for: “I used to be scared of the dick/Now I throw lips to the shit/Handle it like a real bitch/Heather Hunter, Janet Jacme/Take it in the butt, yah, yazz wha!” Oral sex, anal sex AND pornography. Impressive. On debut single “No Time,” she has “No time fake niggas, (she’s) gonna sip some Cristal with some real niggas.” On “Not Tonight,” she “don’t want dick tonight/Eat my pussy right.” In “Crush on You” she’s “not the one you sleep wit, to eat quick/Want a cheap trick? Better go down to FreakNik/You got to hit me off, buy this girl gifts of course/So I look slick, in my six, with my Christian LaCroix.” On Dreams, she recounts having sex with literally every top R & B group of the moment, including stating that “if I would fuck wit Mista they’d be lickin blackberry molasses out my asses.” Lil Kim rhymes like a woman with loose morals, but her loose morals have a purpose. If a man is ignorant enough to tie up wealth and sex, then why not be the beneficiary. Like a sex-starved Robin Hood, Lil Kim would rob the rich to give to herself. Prior to Hard Core, female emcees were fearful of vulgarity and overt sexuality. Lil Kim was draped in furs and bikins and wanton behavior. By having no fear and going harder than EVERYONE, she was an immediate and instantaneously iconic success.

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Lil Kim – Crush On You
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The aggression on this album is palpable, leaps out from the speakers, and strangles the listener, if male, unabashedly by the penis and refuses to let go. Superior production, sampling and songwriting are key to this album’s success. The album is a dizzying blend of sizzle and steak, as Puffy, his producers The Hitmen, and a crew of Lil Kim and ghostwriters including Biggie, Lil’ Cease, Puffy, Stevie J of the Hitmen and a young Cam’ron all contributed to the success of the release. Tracks like “Crush on You” and “Drugs” could’ve been rapped over by an atonal mute and hit the charts. Let a sexy girl with skills go in on those productions, and it’s a win all the way around.

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Hard Core hit #1 on the Rap and R & B Billboard charts and rested at #11 on the Top 200 Album Charts. But it’s impact was obvious. In paving the road for so many emcees afterwards to go hard and be unafraid to enumerate in verse their personal and sensual concerns, she fleshed out a truly dynamic role for female rappers and easily became one of the hardest rappers of all time.