Shortly after the release of his second LP, Lil' Kim leaves the group Junior MAFIA and stops collaborating with Puff Daddy, starting work on his new album with a different production team. The beats are made by Shaft, Big Hill, Havoc, Jay "Waxx" Garfield, Full Force, Swizz Beatz, Timbaland, Lil' Kim, Scott Storch, Fantom of the Beat, Sha Money XL, EZ Elpee, Thorobreads, DJ Bless, Ron Browz and Kanye West. The guests are Havoc, Governor, Shalene Thomas, Full Force, Lil' Shanice, Swizz Beatz, Mashonda, Mr. Cheeks, Missy Elliott, Twista, 50 Cent, Styles P, Reeks, Bunky S.A., Vee and Saint from The Advakids.
Biggie Smalls opens (also) this third album by Lil Kim on a light beat created by Shaft and Big Hill, supported by a good piano loop, therefore production becomes heavy, with a bit of rigid boom bap and an undecided sound between mafia tones and spaghetti western tones. “Hold It Now” is definitely not one of the best choices in Havoc's career and it doesn't sound like a beat typical of him, nonetheless, it's still not his worst choice: there's a tight, claustrophobic loop where Lil Kim delivers bars with a better flow than his previous efforts for whatever reason.
Jay Garfield creates something beyond the ordinary for pick number three: the beat seems stolen directly from the Neptunes, it's tight, shiny, glossy, kept on the street getting dust on its trousers, Kim pays homage to Biggie again ("still the best rapper"), wallowing in materialism. Immediately after comes what is perhaps the best track of the album and of Lil Kim's career, "Can't Fuck with Queen Bee". Shelene Thomas does a fantastic job on the hook, perfect, Governor cleans up the imperfections and fills the space deliberately left by Kim's execution and Full Force's light production: the guys behind the keyboards created a light boom bap for this rnb ballad, wisely using an excellent sample from Deniece Williams' "Free", the song becomes a nice showcase for Shelene Thomas and Lil' Kim.
A skit precedes "Shake Ya Bum Bum": Jay Garfield's lukewarm, lackluster boom bap where a flute leads the production and Kim proves uncertain on a track in which she guest credits Lil' Shanice (alter ego of Kim herself with digitally distorted voice). Swizz Beatz is behind the keyboards on “This Is Who I Am”, also providing the intro and outro on the track. Swizz's production is singular, boom bap with dance club elements, and unlike almost all of his productions, this one sounds decent, it almost sounds good. It's pleasant, enjoyable, I can't explain how, but it works. Mashonda returns grace to the hook, Swizz comes in the background to weed out that grace, also trying to sink Mashonda's hook, which resists and ultimately brings the track home with the help of a Lil Kim at ease on this type of rhythms. From start to finish there's a sample of Biggie from the famous 1995 Budweiser Superfest Freestyle.
Timbaland brings Kim back to the club with "The Jump Off", where the girl has fun with Mr. Cheeks in a party song aimed at clubs and radio with a commercial pop dance production in which the girl slides away like caramel on a beat with Egyptian-Middle Eastern sounds. Timbaland is called upon to increase sales and succeeds in doing so, his piece is designated the first single of the CD and achieves good commercial success all over the world. Kim sings rnb on an R. Kelly track and no longer raps in the following cut, that the more you listen to it, the more it should tell you that it's her version of Biggie Smalls' "Playa Hater", here the girl seems to address her rivals in the market on a self-produced beat. While Wallace's ballad is memorable, Kim's track ends up being just one of many by her on this new record.
Scott Storch provides a questionable beat for the following cut, in which Kim joins Missy Elliott, who delivers only the chorus and outro. There's an uptempo beat from Storch to welcome a dizzying flow from Twista. Unfortunately, the rhythm chosen by the producer is still poor, Twista is good, Lil' Kim kills the beat. The song is then chosen as the third single, the second is "Magic Stick" with 50 Cent, one of the most appreciated songs on this LP. Sha Money XL and Fantom of the Beat production ("Apollo Kids", "Miguel Sanchez", "Street Opera" and "Blue Armor" for Ghostface Killah, "City High" for Inspectah Deck and "Lay Down" for Streetlife, among others) is static and weak in one of the most sexual songs on the product, hook included: the rhythm would work even if the track ended around the two minute mark, instead it's stretched to six by a useless skit.
There's a soulful chipmunk sample in the beat provided by EZ Elpee and Thorobreads for "Get in Touch with Us", where Styles P joins Kim on a syncopated, sick boom bap: Kim delivers worthily, then Styles P takes care of the rhythm with hard and necessary slaps in the mouth and an absurd flow, restoring freshness and bringing back to the streets a record that had been lost in getting drunk and high in the clubs. "Heavenly Father" is one of the songs I appreciated most on Kim's third album. There's another sample pitched up, this time from "A Prayer" by The O'Jays, this isn't a chipmunk soul tape so it's curious to find two samples like this in a row. Shaft's beat is minimal, underground, bouncing, kicking up dust, it's New York. Even with all the effort in the world you can't go wrong with a production done this well, Kim is fluid, smoothness, effortless and she pens one of her best songs on the album.
"The Beehive" shows one of the weak points of the project, its lack of coherence and its frequent irregularity. After a couple of strong picks comes this thing that's hard to identify. I'm thinking of a posse with Kim's friends or something, weed carriers or something. Even if you think it might be Lil Kim's new group similar to Biggie's Junior MAFIA, these guys' artistic careers are ended in the first moments by DJ Bless who under the pseudonym Sutter Kain provides them with a bouncy, pseudo dance / pseudo pop beat that doesn't work. He lets it go ignoring the boys' rapping, which is negligible, and I still don't understand what I'm listening to, not even the mixing guy (Dan "The" Man from G-Unit) can fix this mess.
The album, fortunately, isn't finished yet. Lil Kim closes in style with “Came Back for You”. Superlative and enchanting production that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the album. In fact it comes directly from a guy who has nothing to do with the rest of the previous producers, it's Kanye West, at the peak [of his artistry] at the time and rising in the game pioneered by the chipmunk soul sound. Heavy charged bassline, bright sample from "Didn't We" by Irene Reid, tender midtempo drum, light kick and snare, boom bap jazz soul on which Lil Kim brings her best flow, delivering bars with a rough, raw, energetic, determined style, in this diss against Foxy Brown and Eve. As a bonus track for the Japanese market there's the album's promotional single "What's the Word?", where Kim drops bars over bouncy Ron Browz production.
Lil Kim brings her back to the ma-fi-oso a few years, let's say seven or so, after the end of the first life cycle of this cinematic subgenre of gangsta rap. Or at least, that's how [this CD] is seen by critics, when in reality there's very little of the rap mafia in this project, despite what the title may tell you or the fact that John Gotti's daughter actually appears in the music video for the single "Came Back for You".
I wanted to see the film of the same name before going through the track by track and it was quite long, because it took me a few months to pick up the film again after abandoning it the first time due to the fact that the it's quite bland, slow and boring even for a TV movie. If "Bella Mafia" (1997) is a [yet another] female revision of the "Godfather", this Lil Kim record is comparable to your generic pop rap album: as denounced by the few professional critics who gave negative opinions towards the release, Queen B in fact renounces a large number of sexual rhymes typical of her discography and she replaces them with normal braggadocio which is exalted only in some scenes when some high-level actors come to make appearances, as happens in Greene's film.
Distributed by Queen Bee and Atlantic, the album was positively received by most critics — the few who give a negative review of the project complain about the lack of sexual rhymes — and achieves good sales success, exceeding one million copies in a few months and obtaining platinum status. Kim wants to return to the streets while maintaining her mainstream appeal, coming on the heels of some recent hits including the "Lady Marmalade" remix, and she succeeds, remaining both at the top of the urban charts ("Magic Stick" stops at number two on the Hot 100) both by creating different songs for the streets, thanks to some of her best performances ever, excellent guests (Styles P easily the MVP of the album) and a competent production that improves especially in the finale and which features what could also be the only good beat guessed by Swizz throughout the 2000s.
I think it's Lil Kim's best album, therefore essential for fans, although it will surely disappoint aficionados of the dirty rap scene, this project isn't made of that cloth, it doesn't live the atmosphere of her 1996 debut. 6/10.
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