My favorite all time Lil Kim song is from her recent La Bella Mafia album. The song is called "This is who I am". In it Kim declares she won't change herself from that original hood chic. When Lil Kim first appeared on the Hip-Hop scene she was an anomaly. A sweet but raunchy, one of a kind Brooklyn vixen. At a mere 4'11 and barely 100lbs she was non-threatening, despite her tales of drug lore and illicit X rated sex. To her fans there was something innocent and authentic about her. Kim has always been controversial but so has public breast-feeding. In all fairness to the obvious, Kim's controversies have not been as innocent as public breast-feeding, but her chronic controversies have helped to make Lil' Kim a household name.

Lil Kim has been lucky; she came along at the right time and was aligned with the right man. Her mentor, Biggie Smalls was a star in the rap game. Biggie developed her rhyme flow and ghetto lyricism for a commercial market. When Big was notoriously gunned down, many wondered out loud what would happen to Kim. Well that answer would be an ongoing and constantly changing one. Kim morphed herself into more of a Hollywood personality than a rapper. She was on TV and receiving much fanfare although she did not have a new album out, Kim was between albums for over three years and was getting as much coverage as rappers that had new releases out. One reason that the media loves Lil Kim was because she raced to controversy instead of away from it. She positioned herself as a, shock the public, please look at me artist with a simple get paid agenda. Adopting a philosophy that any and everything goes and nothing is off limits. Nothing, except for bootlegs of her album.

The first time Kim displayed disdain for anything appears to be when she spoke to MTV, regarding bootlegging, Kim said, "it's ridiculous. It's really not fair. It's stealing. It's cheating. It's just not right. There has to be a way to handle it. What they do, anyway, is they take our stuff and they sell it and make money off of it, so we might as well get our money back from them". Kim was livid and felt exploited. Although history proves Kim loves exploitation of herself and any images as long as she can profit. And profit she has.

Kim posed nude in the back of a limousine for an ad. She has appeared for media interviews, with legs open and no underwear. Kim showed her breast repeatedly in front of concert audiences in New York and Boston way before Janet Jackson ever thought about it. In NY at the Hot97 Summer Jam concerts she used her newly implanted breast to upstage a host of celebrity rap acts.

"Oh you muthaf---a!" Kim blurts out under her breath; both she and Trina were shocked and upset with 50's truth. 50 later called her and apologized to her and then asked her to perform "Magic Stick". Ironically Kim was only asked since 50's record label was unable to maneuver through the industry red tape to get Trina to perform Magic stick on his album. The song was a huge commercial success but they never once performed the song together. Using the Funkmaster Flex mid day show on Hot-97 50-Cent said, "I wrote 'Magic Stick.' I gave Kim a hit. Then I wouldn't do the video, she threw a little fit. Got emotional and shit. Now this I don't get, why would I care about your emotions? You're not my b**ch."

Flex, more mature and recently removed from his own controversy chided 50 about the unnecessary drama he was starting and the interview ended shortly thereafter. Unfortunately directly following the Lil Kim diss comments, ten gunshots were fired near 50-Cent and his entourage as they tried to make it back to their New Jersey hotel. Police soon began investigating Lil Kim's ex-boyfriend, "World Wise" aka Damion Hardy. A five percent nation member with a serious street reputation. Police were trying to find out if he had any involvement in the incident. The NY Daily News even said that World was staying with Lil' Kim at her Bergen County estate, at the time and that Jersey City police were showing Hardy's mug shot to witnesses. Many believed this tidbit, may have been a tip from the N.Y.P.D's Hip-Hop task force

After the rumors began to flow, World set out to publicly distance, himself from Kim and then appeared on WBLS (107.5) in NYC. Oddly enough he was in studio for over 2 hours, telling listeners he had nothing to do with the shots fired at 50-Cent and that he had not seen Kim face to face in over a year. Instead he focused most of his rhetoric on the outing of big named rappers he claimed were Masons and closeted homosexuals. World claimed intimate but unproven knowledge of this all because he said Lil Kim was a Eastern Star and her group was the sister organization to the Mason brotherhood. His reason for giving all this information was his belief that Mason's were trying to destroy Islam through rap music and entertainment. This all seemed totally crazy to most fans but most believed that Lil Kim should have distanced herself from the rhetoric of her former paramour who was being labeled her protector. Instead the attention-seeking vixen stayed mysteriously quiet. Considering the seriousness of it all this was probably a bad strategy for Kim.

It was a bad move for her to be associated with World's words or associated as some co-conspirator in another shooting, she has a ton of endorsement deals (at least 5) on the table she could lose. Lil Kim was well aware that authorities were still investigating the two year old shooting that took place in front of Hot97 radio station (downtown Manhattan) in broad daylight. When her entourage and Capone N Noriega's (CNN) entourage exchanged at least 20 shots. Which left Efrain Ocasio a CNN associate wounded in the back. This nonsense appears to be the result of insults which had gone back and forth and included dissess of Lil' Kim by Foxy Brown in the song "Bang Bang", where Foxy calls Kim's album (Notorious K.I.M) "trash"! This was one of Foxy's replies to Kim's old crew (Junior Mafia) who had dissed her in the song "Play Around" in 1999. Later Foxy realized the stupidity of it all and offered a truce but Kim ignored it. Kim's inability to separate the music industry drama with real life drama may mark her ultimate demise.

Last month Kim and her friend Monique Dopwell were charged with lying to a federal grand jury about the shooting outside Hot97. In her grand-jury testimony, Kim claimed that Damion Butler was not with her at the time of the shooting and that she didn't even know Suif Jackson. However authorities cite her albums where she gives shouts outs to them by their pseudo names and a hidden surveillance street video that they say shows her getting into a car with the men. Prosecutors also plan to use her recorded lyrics to prove motive and cause. Lil' Kim pled not guilty at her arraignment hearing for perjury and obstruction of justice. Charges that carry upwards of more than 30 years. An irony in this is that her fans believe Kim to be the most honest celebrity because she openly admits to breast implants, skin lightening and other forms of plastic surgery. (As if the public could not see the standard fake boob job that happens when plastic surgery is botched and leaves an unnatural space in the chest. Making it very obvious where the implants start and stop in her chest.)

When Kim came to court with her lawyer Mel Sach's the public was horrified to see her, in the process of what appears to be a Michael Jackson type of self destructive "make over". 50 Cent early plastic surgery diss was becoming prophetic. She looked so bad fans were hoping that a boyfriend had simply beaten her. It would be believable since Kim claimed Biggie had abused her in order to make her have an abortion. We were all shocked by her tails of the black eyes Biggie inflicted on her. The most shocked person was probably Violetta Wallace (Biggie's Mom) who then compared Kim to Benedict Arnold and said "If my son had pulled a gun on Lil Kim, I wish he would have blown her brains out" (Ms.Wallace later apologized).

The horrid looking Lil Kim we see now, is not the result of a beating by an angry man but seemingly the self inflicted beating of an angry girl. A girl who once masked her low self-esteem by giving us peeks of her "birthday suit", was now addressing her esteem issues by altering her appearance toward a more doll like European standard. It appears the Black world may have to brace again, as we witness another once beautiful black celebrity physically destroy them self after succumbing to a white supremacy dynamic. A dynamic that is unrelenting and destructive on the psyche of those who accept it. In my opinion she looked bad overall in her last movie role "You Got Served". It was obvious to me that her diminutive 4'11 frame was out-of-wack with the extra 25 lbs on her frame and that she had undergone some serious bloating in the face and body. Recent photos of her face show extreme distortion that may be the result of either a new lip collagen injection or another freshly inserted upper lip implant. If so the swelling will subside in a few days but her face is still ruined. Either way during her last public she looked terrible. Kim knew it so she tried to hide behind her lawyer and under big sunglasses while ignoring her former co conspirators from the media. According to Kim these changes started when she came to the conclusion that she "was a sex symbol". Kim said, "I felt [surgery] would make me have more fun with my photo shoots and enhance my look a little bit." It's sad that she believes changing her nose, lip jobs, boob jobs, skin lightening and other changes will make her "more fun and enhance her" because that feeling should come from within. Kim doesn't look the same and although she has always switched hairstyles and hair colors as much as her overseas outfits she still continued to be recognizable under all the outfits until recent.

We are witnessing Kimberly Jones world crumble. Kim is still estranged from her biological father who she has not spoken to in years. Her real "Big Papa" disapproves of her style and made what may be a final effort to reach her on Father's Day of 2003. She said, "I really wanted to call him. One day I'm going to call him." Around the same time Kim was realizing that dad was not going to try to reach her again. Kim was parting ways with Lil' Cease and Junior Mafia who she claimed were her main family outside of her mother. To date, Lil' Kim's manager Hillary Weston has been indicted with a separate indictment of conspiracy to misuse a passport and the misuse of a U.S. passport. Weston faces a maximum prison sentence of 15 years.

The Queen Bee once had a bravado and arrogance about life but it's a new ball game. Her alleged protectors Butler and Jackson are currently in jail on other charges and Kim can't bail them out if she is to maintain she doesn't know them or barely knows them. (Of course where there is a will there is a way.) But if the prosecution is correct and she does know them then it's obvious she is taking the route that P-Diddy did in the Shyne case. Kim's attorney's are seeking a separate trial in the perjury and obstruction of justice case stemming from the 2001 shooting in front of New York City's Hot97. It's seems selfish, but that is Lil Kim and it seems to be the best thing for her to do to stop at least one aspect of her self-destruction. On November 15th 2004 Lil Kim's trial will begin but if she continues to get plastic surgery to make her self feel better. The result of the trial won't matter because no money or Lawyer can fix her real problem -just ask Michael Jackson. - Nuff said!

More Lil' Kim Pictures

Released: May 23rd, 2004

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