The sexual rapper Biggie Smalls always admired: “Out of this world”
Before there was Nicki, Cardi, or Megan, there was, of course, Lil Kim. Born in New York City, the pioneering rapper cut her teeth under the mentorship of The Notorious BIG and quickly established a name for herself with her debut album, 1996’s Hard Core.
It was an album that was as much a reflection of East Coast hip hop at the time as it was also a display of what Lil Kim had to offer at the time the scene was almost entirely dominated by men. She was utterly confident in her sexual prowess; reclaiming pleasure and desire from how men in the industry traditionally discussed women. She could hold her own with both delivery and lyrics; she was as street smart as she was undoubtedly glamorous.
So it’s no wonder the genre’s elite quickly made space for her with the making of Hard Core. Biggie Smalls, Diddy, Jermaine Dupri, and, naturally, BIG himself, produced the album; features on it include Jay-Z and Puff Daddy.
Speaking to XXL on the making of Hard Core for its 20th anniversary, Lil Kim explained just how she brought her sexual prowess and independence to the music scene, and exactly who in particular was impressed with it.
“I guess because when I first started rapping, I always had sexy in my raps, and Biggie thought it was so different and amazing,” Lil Kim said of the rapper.
“He used to just watch me rap and like he said before, he never thought my lyrics was so crazy, but he felt like the energy I brought when I did do a dope punchline or dope metaphor, he thought it was just spectacular, out of this world for a female to be doing, because females didn’t normally rap the way I rapped. He just felt like with me being around him and the influence, he knew that I would get better and I would get bigger. It just started happening right before our eyes.”
“The sexy part was just me,” she continued. “Everyone felt like I should be me. I guess when they met me, by their words, they felt like that was the dope part about me. I was very fly already and super sexy as a young girl. They were also worried about me being so young and sexy and over-the-top provocative. They kind of marketed me as an older girl, even though I wasn’t.
“They just did not want me to change who I was, because everything I did was super sexy, and they were just like, That was dope, because it had never been done in the hardcore, gangsta hip-hop music that I was making.”
The album is today considered a bona fide classic in hip-hop, as well as a heavyweight in the history of women’s music. It debuted at number 11 on the US Billboard 200, number three on the Billboard Top R&B and Hip-Hop Albums, and was certified double platinum to boot. Decades later, Rolling Stone ranked Hard Core as the 78th best debut album of all time.
And that was just the start of the pioneering rapper’s career. Lil Kim is today the second best-selling female rapper of all time, and a Grammy Award winner for her 2001 single ‘Lady Marmalade’. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?