Rap music was in an interesting place when Lil Kim made her arrival in the late ’90s with her debut album, Hard Core, and this ‘Funkmaster Flex Freestyle’ shows exactly why she became one of the hottest talents in hip-hop.
Kim was a refreshing influence on the genre, and she was a pioneer who single-handedly changed people’s perspectives on female rapper’s. She went as hard on the mic as her male contemporaries, kitted herself out in more diamonds than anybody else around, and was unashamed to express her sexuality.
“Salt-N-Pepa had the sexiness I knew I had,” she once said about her musical influences to Talib Kweli on Uproxx. “See MC Lyte was always rough — she didn’t really care to be nothing else, but like look ‘I’m just a rough chick with a pretty face.’
“That’s who she was and wanted to be. But Salt-N-Pepa had everything I kinda was. I was sexy with the rough edge but I knew I was different from both of them completely.”
Despite having many different influences, there’s no getting away from the fact that Kim has always been a maverick. An artist who is one of the most culturally important rappers of the last 25 years. This ‘Funkmaster Flex Freestyle’ is full of attitude, and swagger which she packed into the track. Kim exudes such confidence when she’s behind the mic that it’s hard not to feel infected by the conviction of her delivery.
She arrogantly spits on the track, “Look around, look around, the room’s empty, So, I guess that be me, The Queen B, Double E, I keep my foes close, Like I used to chop my hoes close, But this cat named Gicanno’s, Who used to call me bag lady.”
There’s a nonchalance to how she attacks the microphone on the freestyle, and, in truth, there simply wasn’t another female rapper on the planet who could compete with her ostentatious approach.
Decades on, it’s easy to see the mark that Lil Kim has left behind on the industry and how she walked so others could run. She often doesn’t get the dues she deserves, but below is a freestyle that confirms why she is an undisputed icon of the genre.
