Kimberly Jones grows up in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, and during adolescence leaves both home and school, starting to live on the streets and then completing her studies later. She meets Biggie Smalls, who gets her off the streets and into a successful musical artist. After some infamous skits on The Notorious BIG's debut album (1994) and an album with Junior M.A.F.I.A. (1995), Jones aka Lil' Kim made her solo debut with "Hard Core" (1996), an album that set records when it wasn't breaking records. The success of the album followed a long tour undertaken together with Puff Daddy and in the meantime the Brooklyn rapper is also establishing herself as a successful model.
Since 1998, Lil Kim begins recording material for her new album, but in the summer of 1999 a dozen songs leaked onto the internet: in the following weeks, the artist recorded new songs and the album's release date was moved from August 1999 to April 2000. The production of the album is entrusted to Puff Daddy's Hitmen team (himself, Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, Carlos "Six July" Broady, Richard "Younglord" Frierson, Jay "Waxx" Garfield, Nashiem Myrick, Mario "Yellowman" Winans), as well as Jerome "Knobody" Foster, Darren "Limitless" Henson, Kimberly "Lil' Kim" Jones, Daniel Glowover, Fury, MAS, Shaft, Rockwilder, Kanye West and Rated R. Guests are The Notorious B.I.G. Puff Daddy, Junior Mafia, Lil' Cease, Mario Winans, Cee-Lo, Redman, Grace Jones, Sisqó, Carlo Thomas, Lil' Shanice and Mary J. Blige.
The album begins with a non-sexual intro, fortunately. Kim delivers along with Redman and Cee-Lo Green over a very poor beat made by Hitmen Sean "Diddy" Combs & Mario "Yellowman" Winans. That first non-sexual track makes me question whether this is really an official Lil' Kim record. So here comes the next song to dispel my doubts and immediately put certainties in my head: the first moans arrive looped directly from a sample of the song "French Kiss", hit by house pioneer Lil Louis. You would tend to think that the moans would go away after a few seconds, but instead they remain in the background for the entire duration of the track, over a basically unlistenable boom bap production from Fury and Glogower.
"Who's Number One?" is track number three and has a more rhythmic production than the previous one, the beat of Knobody and Younglord (only the latter is in the roster of the Puff Daddy production team) is still poor despite the Eddie Kendricks sample, while Lil Kim takes a few digs at rival Foxy Brown in an otherwise forgettable song. A bold, ironic, bravado and sexually explicit style follows during which Lil Kim delivers hardcore over a rather mediocre boom bap made by MAS and Rated R in what is ultimately perhaps one of the best tracks on the album.
Mario Winans makes a really bad static beat by wasting a Sade sample for "Single Black Female", hook and bridge seem to never end. Diddy and Winans deliver a boom bap so light it's soporific in the sixth track, this music seems made to put people to sleep, Lil Kim's dull delivery, the sleepy rap of the other Junior MAFIA star Lil Cease and the very slow hook sung by Grace Jones don't help. Sisqó guests on "How Many Licks?", on a dirty low-level club beat created by the usual suspects, while Lil' Kim spits some of the most pornographic bars on the album.
"Notorious KIM" is one of many tributes to Biggie Smalls, performing a posthumous hook stolen from "Goin' Back to Cali" over a questionable production, cheesy dance-club rhythm created by Rockwilder. The following track finds Puff Daddy dancing to some very bad Latin-flavored pop dance production from Darren "Limitless" Henson. This song, against the will of the author herself, is chosen by the Atlantic label as the first single of the LP.
The imagination begins to wane in the second part of the album, even the lyrical one, starting from cut number ten, over some crappy music by Shaft. A trio from Hitmen équipe reunites for "Queen Bitch Pt. 2", Nashiem Myrick — if he isn't the only one, he's one of the few guys on the production team who doesn't have a moniker — Carlos "Six July" Broady and Jay "Waxx" Garfield: the rhythm the guys chose sounds better than most of what I've heard so far (and it didn't need much), but it still doesn't sound right, while Puff Daddy and Lil Kim deliver stanzas along with two Biggie Smalls excerpts to build the hook, from "What's Beef" (by Wallace, 1997) and "Queen Bitch" (by Jones, 1996), respectively.
Kanye West is also behind the keyboards on this project, for some reason: the Chicago producer produces "Don't Mess With Me", co-assisted by Deric "D-Dot" Angillette. West is forced to lower himself and try to raise the level of production on Kim's second album and fails. This beat is a mess. West inserts Pat Benatar's rock sample, he places a drum that's too harsh to be there and just runs away (no pun intended). Kim delivers creditably, but can't handle this beat. Shaft returns in the following song and offers a rhythm for discodance, Lil Cease and the other Junior MAFIA guys (Larce "Banger" Vegas and Bristal; both friends of Lil Cease, I don't know if there's a definition for "weed carriers of a weed carrier", it would probably be "weed carriers' gofers") are forgettable.
Diddy and Winans return behind the keyboards for track number fourteen, "Off the Wall", and this time too they don't disappoint: this cheap production sucks, the entire song is skippable, Diddy himself and the trusty Lil Cease, the main guest of the project, come to Kim's aid. "Right Now" is a completely right song, the beat club dance is excellent and spot on, props to Shaft who finally guesses a production, the sample is spot on (from Suzanne Vega's hit, "Tom's Diner"), Carl Thomas' hook is spot on and Lil Kim's rapping works too. Nice cut. Too bad you only get to track number fifteen, after an hour of rubbish.
"Aunt Dot" takes us back to the sewer or, if you prefer, in the last sticky seats of the porn cinema in which this album was recorded: Mario Winans' tepid rnb boom bap, Lil Kim drops two fat verses about "her stuff". Mary J. Blige comes to bless "Hold On", one of the worst Biggie tributes to date: Nashiem Myrick does a decent job behind the keyboards, unfortunately the song isn't good. Mario Winans creates the dance rhythm for the final track of the album "I'm Human", the production is weak and Kim's rapping is also weak.
Second CD by Lil Kim, her first after the death of her mentor-lover Biggie. The cover in which she wears a dress is revolutionary. The album should be a "dirty" classic based on the magic square of rap (money, weapons, drugs, sex), with good rapping by Lil Kim and competent lyrics in the field of dirty-hardcore / porno-gangsta rap, but it's marred by terrible production and is bloated by the excess of material on offer, with the running time exceeding 77 minutes. Published by her label Queen Bee, Undeas and Atlantic, the album received a positive reception from critics and had great sales success, reaching first place on the rap chart, fourth on the Billboard 200 and also grinding copies in the Canadian market (gold certified and among the best-selling records of 2001) and in Europe. Just under a month after release, it's certified platinum by the RIAA and became one of the best-selling rap products of the year and decade. It will make Lil Kim and Junior Mafia fans happy, not recommended for anyone else.
Rating: 2.5/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment