i was once a HUGE lil kim fan. lil kim could have rapped my speeding tickets and the corresponding fees on a hot beat and i would have been completely down with it. when her last album the naked truth came out, i drove about an hour to best buy and bought 2 copies. one for my car, and one for my apartment. i had to have it. to date i have owned 5 copies of The Notorious K.I.M. and that album still holds a very special place in my heart and in my cd portfolio.
i could segue into this whole spiel about how i was missing all the female rappers that i loved and had grown up listening to and then along came Nicki Minaj. i could talk about how i was listening to the radio one day and heard this voice and instantly fell in love with the personality, the wordplay, the audacity of this woman, the black barbie…. i could,but why would i? none of that really happened. at least, not to me. to millions of others though, it happened exactly like that.
i don’t even remember when i heard nicki minaj the first time. but when i first saw a pic of her or saw her on television i was like (and please pardon my language) “are you fucking serious right now?” i was disappointed by her look, her facial expressions had me shaking my head so much i’m sure somebody thought i was developing early onset parkinson’s… the hair, the clothes the voice(s) the everything. too much. and then i heard her rap. sigh. i am a sucker for wordplay. a good cadence is fine, because tupac (who i’m not a fan of really but i can respect his talent) was a master of cadence and rhythm, and we all know he had (and still has) a bit of a cult following. a gimmick or an image, though once not important at all, is now almost more important than talent and ability (see cali swag district, souljah boy tellem, wacka flocka flame, et all). and to be female in a crew or family of established male rappers doesn’t hurt either. unless you’re La’Chat, or Shawnna, or dare i say it, eve. but this chick, this nicki minaj character, was just that to me, a character. someone who would be the pretty girl in a crew of established rappers. big damn deal.
and then she was everywhere. on everybody’s remix, and she was beasting. EVERYWHERE. mix tapes, radio edits, videos, television. beasting. who could deny her? no album out and she’s a household name? who does that? ( i know other rappers have, but how many of them were female? exactly) and for every fan, barbie or ken barbie, she has a hater. most of the guys i know who don’t like nicki minaj are, in my opinion, probably descendants of men who didn’t like diana ross when she broke from the supremes, or didn’t much care for madonna at any point. and that’s sad. why is it that we hate what we can’t conquer? i think if a man is intimidated by a woman in any fashion, his first line of defense is to downplay her talent, intelligence or sexuality. for example, i have a friend (several actually) on facebook that i went to college with who claims that nicki minaj is a gimmick and the only reason anyone pays her any attention is because of her body. well hell the same could be said for lil kim, trina, khia, shawnna, etc. is that what you’re looking for to see someone’s viability? because if that were the case, why then is lil wayne so popular, or rick ross? they’re not what most women would call attractive, either due to genetics or their own modifications. or is it a double standard among blacks, men, and black men to always denigrate a woman’s ability to thrive and succeed in a “man’s world”? y’all did lil kim the same way. she can be a sex goddess but nothing else. you can lust after her but not listen to her because listening to her and then looking at her would force you to come o the realization that her body is something you can never have. you can’t conquer her sexually so you must break her down to a point where you are disgusted with her very being in order to remove the shame and insecurity you feel about being your lame or average, dreamless, goal less self.
personally, i’ve been told several times that my vocabulary and intelligence intimidate or turn men off. so the next logical step is to assume that because i am so independent, intelligent and outspoken i must be a lesbian or bi-sexual. dudes always talking about taming me as if i’m sort of animal. the same could be said for any female who can hold her own. where is the sense in that mess?
i digress. so there’s a beef between lil kim and nicki minaj. this article is so poignant. apparently lil kim wants some homage paid to her in some unnamed form for nicki’s image. the wigs, the clothes are all based on kim’s old persona. but where did kim get it from? there’s nothing new under the sun ma’am. madonna has done it, cher has done it, erykah badu has done it, hell even boy george and elton john have done it. did you pay homage to them? or is it kim that you see your relevance fly out the window every time you hear a nicki minaj feature, or you’re sitting at home while she’s all over the television? she acknowledged you. did you acknowledge mia x? did you say ‘preshate you mia for being one of the first hard core female gangsta rappers with staying power’? no. because you weren’t checkin for mia x, the same way no body was checkin for nicki minaj because they thought she was a serial feature artist, a female figurehead in a sausage factory crew. what did you do to make sure you would stay relevant? not a lot. where’s your clothing line? your make up line? wig line? non profit? no? don’t have one? so you were just a flash in the pan then huh? didn’t take the time to brand your name like diddy, or jay z or any of the other rappers who also don’t pay you any attention.
do you do well to be angry lil kim?
nicki sings her own hooks. and can hold a pitch better than some of the more thirsty “r&b singers” out now (see keri hilson). she writes her own stuff, and we all know you’ve always had to negate having a ghostwriter. your diss record was weak, even for you.
she’s keeping you relevant. you sound bitter, desperate, THIRSTY. where’s your album? where’s your feature? you got street cred for going to jail. you didn’t come back hard. you didn’t pull a T.I. before you went to jail. his show was on MTV, yours on BET. when you came back where did you go? lil kim who?
this is sad because there aren’t a plethora of successful female rappers who still rap or made their name household fodder because they are businesswomen par excellence. this is like when a mother hates on her daughter because she’s still young perky and pretty. it’s that self actualization that one day we will be a memory. madonna and elton john have embraced lady gaga. why you hatin? and then here comes khia’s one (minor) hit wonder ass….nobody knew who you were until you were on that whack ass VH1 show and then you couldn’t even win that and you were a “real” rapper by then. you got clowned by wannabes. who does that?
minaj did a mini doc with MTV that was more revealing, more honest than any other artist we’ve seen. peeling back the persona and showing her self. she earned my respect (as much as i can muster for someone making millions of dollars while i’m unemployed and yet a starving artist) in that 53 minutes. she ‘bossed up’.
to the female rappers with nothing else to do… find something else to do. put out a record. make some money. get on twitter (if you even know what that is) get a lipstick. get your weight up. do SOMETHING. quit hatin. it’s so unbecoming of a lady, queen, or otherwise.
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