The Noisey Guide to Lil’ Kim

Remember when Lil Kim was a thing? CORRECTION, IDIOTS, LIL KIM IS FOREVER. And yeah, you had your Queen Latifahs and your MC Lytes holding it down for the females in the rap game, but it was when Kimberly Denise Jones rolled into the music industry that we got a breath of fresh… Okay, maybe not fresh, but heavy-with-dark-musk-perfume-and-pheromones air. She thrusted her way into the male dominated hip-hop consciousness, while rhyming about cunninglingus and wearing high leg thongs. What’s not to admire?

On that refined and classy note, here are some of my stand out Lil Kim moments, just a handful of great shit from her indomitable career.

THE TIME SHE CHAMPIONED THE CROTCH SHOT (AND RELEASED HARD CORE)

Kim’s maiden voyage away from Junior M.A.F.I.A was a total anomaly for its time as she combined kinda terrifying sex braggadocio with a rawness that hadn’t been embraced by a female rapper before. The explicit Hard Core established her as a unicorn in the world of hip-hop, garnering sales and delivering lines just as hard as her male counterparts. The LP also contained one of the most casually excellent crotch shots in music history, that’s been aped by many a lady lyricist after her.

THE TIME SHE COULD NOT BE IMITATED

No. Not even the slutty one from Sex and the City can pull it off. But how many rappers get cited in a TV show that is exclusively for neurotic white women?

THE TIME SHE WAS WITH BIGGIE

Literally nobody gives a solitary fuck about Charli Baltimore and Faith Evans gospel singing wifey role was always inoffensive to the point of being slightly dull. It’s the Kim and Biggie ride-or-die sidechick romance that will go down in history because out of all the women in that fat man’s life it was always Kim that would have cut most body parts off to keep Biggie’s affections. If the asides on her verse for “Get Money” didn’t make you want to do a Good Will Hunting style “IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT HE DOESN’T LOVE YOU, KIM” speech, then have fun keeping your cold heart beating, you monster.

THE TIME SHE WAS IN DEF JAM: FIGHT FOR NY

I know right? I was pretty sure I’d dreamed this video game, but here it is in all its glory, with Lil Kim roundhouse kicking Carmen Electra in the subway… because LOL.

THE TIME SHE HAD THE BEST OUTFITS IN THE HISTORY OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

What some would call tacky and genital suffocating, I would call iconic. Throughout her career she’s sported more wigs than you can shake a Russian women’s prison hair-salon floor at, and this was all long before it was a requirement of famous lady pop stars to switch up their image every five seconds to keep up with ever dwindling attention spans. Lil Kim was reinventing her look every week just for the lulz of it. Her fondness for rainbow colored fur, wigs, acrylic nails, and showing A LOT of skin had everyone from Versace to Iceberg to David LaChapelle falling over themselves to use her as a muse. Seriously though, is there anybody in this world that can color coordinate as aggressively as her?

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THAT TIME SHE DID DANCING WITH THE STARS

Ignoring the fact that she decided to spend the series talking like a 17-year-old valley girl, Kim’s turn on Dancing With The Stars was surprisingly satisfying to watch. I mean, will you be doing splits in your mid-thirties? Can you even do the splits now? I struggle to put my socks on in the morning.

THE TIME SHE WAS IN SHE’S ALL THAT

Yeah, I don’t even know. I bet she made Freddie Prinze Jr cry.

THE TIME SHE HAD BEEF WITH EVERYONE

Kim seems to have had a tumultuous relationship with everyone ever, falling out with former school buddy Foxy Brown, former work buddy Diddy and, most recently, former fan Nicki Minaj. And yet, there’s something about her ability to throw shade so comically (simply calling Drake “weak and pink”, haaaa!) combined with, y’know, being Lil fucking Kim that gives her carte blanche to smack talk whoever she pleases. Take note Azealia Banks, you might want to have a platinum album before acting like a total prick.

THE TIME SHE GOT A TIT OUT AT THE VMAS

“Miss Jones! We’ve run out of rhinestone encrusted panties!”

“[SIGH] Pass me the motherfucking scissors and PVA glue.”

THE TIME SHE SET UP LIL KIM CARES

~Serious moment~ you guys. She set up the Lil Kim Cares foundation to raise money for women in abusive relationships, having fled from an often-violent father as a kid, she also later became embroiled in a relationship with a boyfriend who broke her nose twice. Having kept that relationship pretty private, she chose to speak up on domestic violence after the Breezy/Rihanna scandal which, to me at least, reminded me that she’s more than just her cartoon character persona.

THE TIME SHE’S THE MOST SUCCESSFUL RAPPER

For all the misplaced beefs and penchant for surgery that makes her look like an elderly Vietnamese woman, nobody can take away Kim’s Queen Bee crown. Aside from the stats (the first female rapper to ever have a US number one, only female rapper to receive The Source‘s acclaimed five mic rating) Lil Kim will go down as a G.O.A.T for sauntering into what had been an exclusively male music territory, and doing it all wearing just a wig and a fur bikini.

Follow Jo on Twitter @FUERTESKNIGHT

For more Noisey Guides read:

The Noisey Guide To Mariah Carey

The Noisey Guide To Aaliyah

The Noisey Guide To Jennifer Lopez