LETTY: On her 1996 debut Hard Core, Lil’
Kim burst onto the scene with high fashion
references, sexually suggestive images and
lyrics to match.
Carving a now-popular lane for women in hip-hop.
CARDI B: Well, the type of things that she
used to say I used to be into,
like I always used to like the slutty talk.
Like yea, woah, this is so cool.
LETTY: But what Kim really did was expand
the range of acceptable behavior for women
in hip-hop.
Instead of just rhymes about sex, she took
the misogynistic sexuality of hardcore
male rappers, and turned it into an empowering sexuality
for hardcore female rappers.
LETTY: Lil' Kim, born Kimberly Denise Jones,
grew up in Brooklyn, New York with her parents
Linwood Jones and Ruby Mae Jones, and her older
brother Christopher.
LETTY: As a child, Kim saw her father physically
abuse her mother,
before they divorced when Kim was nine-years-old.
LETTY: "There was a great deal of verbal abuse,"
she recalls.
"And there was one time . . . when my mother
had black eyes.
My father told people she had fallen."
LETTY: Kim and Christopher stayed with their
father after the separation and she became
the new target of his anger.
KIM: I think it was when I was 13 and I wanted
to have a boyfriend.
That was just like all hell.
I think, he called me a bitch and that was it.
You know how we get.
Especially your father calling you a bitch
it’s like what!
INTERVIEWER: Did he hit you?
KIM: Yea
LETTY: Kim left home as a teen and did whatever
it took to make ends.
Including working at Bloomingdale’s, running
errands for drug dealers, and trading sex
for housing and food.
LETTY: It wasn’t until she began working
with Biggie, who she knew from her Bed-Stuy,
Bed-stuy, Brooklyn neighborhood, in the early 1990s,
that she adopted the moniker Lil' Kim
and pursued music fully.
BIGGIE: From day one, she was always standing
out, you know what I’m sayin,
I knew she had some skills, and I knew what I was planning on doing as far as the
Junior M.A.F.I.A. project and she just fit, she just fit the criteria.
LETTY: Biggie linked with Puffy and his then-fledgling
Bad Boy Records to release his 1994 debut
album, "Ready To Die," where Kim appeared
on “Fuck Me” and “Friend of Mine.”
In 1995, he used his power to get his friends,
including Kim, an Atlantic Records deal to
release Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s Conspiracy album,
which prominently featured Kim rapping.
LETTY: She was influenced by two big acts
coming up, taking their images and flair to
the next level.
KIM: The reason why my style is so sexy gangstress
is because I mixed MC Lyte and Salt-N-Pepa.
That’s all I saw when I used to like rap.
LETTY: And when Kim’s 1996 debut album 'Hard
Core' hit shelves, she proved with songs like
“No Time” and “Crush On You” that she could hold her own while spitting sex-positive rhymes.
LETTY: Kim’s music shocked people.
Though it’s widely known that Big helped
her pen lyrics, Kim’s words inspired generations.
She was even racier than Foxy Brown, whose
1996 debut came after Hard Core, and rode
the same raunchy wave.
LETTY: Kim wasn’t only sexually empowered,
she flipped her traditional gender role.
LETTY: ‘Hard Core’ debuted at number 11 on the Billboard 200,
the highest debut
for a female rap album at the time.
LETTY: "No Time," the lead single, reached
number 1 on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart
and peaked at number 18 on the Hot 100 Chart.
“Crush On You” peaked at number 9 on the
Hot R&B & Hip-Hop Airplay chart.
LETTY: Kim’s “Not Tonight" remix, featuring
Missy Elliott, Angie Martinez, Da Brat and
TLC’s Left Eye peaked at number 6 on the
Hot 100.
LETTY: But not everyone was a fan of Kim’s
liberated sexuality— even though men were
rarely trashed for doing similar things, as
the MC told feminist cultural critic bell hooks
in a 1997 Paper Magazine interview,
quote:
LETTY: But all of a sudden, we have a female
who happens to be a rapper, like me,
and my doin' it is wrong.
And 'cause I like doin' it, it's even more
wrong because we've fought for years as women
to do the same things that men are doing.
LETTY: And in the late 90s, Kim pointed out
how she was treated differently than her pop
and fashion counterparts, who were accepted.
KIM: What makes this poster or me any different
than a model?
KIM: What makes me any different than Madonna?
KIM: You know, that’s how you capture people’s
attention that are from the streets just like you.
And I'm just telling a story and I want people who aren't from the streets  to
also know where I’m coming from.
LETTY: Despite the backlash, Kim remained
explicit with her second album,
2000’s The Notorious K.I.M. and her follow-ups.
KIM: The flack of my music has done a total
360. I can’t even believe it.
I thank God so much.
I thank God that I’m starting to get a lil
love now.
LETTY: No matter what people say, Kim kicked
in the door with ‘Hard Core’ and gave
women in hip-hop the freedom to express themselves explicitly.
FOXY: She was doing her thing before me, she
paved the way,
she was the first one coming out with the little, you know what I mean, the sexy thing.
REMY MA: All ya’ll bitches got your style
from Kim!
KIM: What's up, New York!
