Brooklyn rapper
Lil' Kim
verified her icon status in the '90s with her role in
the Notorious B.I.G.
's
Junior M.A.F.I.A.
collective and with her rock solid 1996 solo debut
Hard Core
. Ruthless street rhymes and larger-than-life swagger made her one of the hardest female figures in a mostly male-dominated rap scene.
's later albums didn't always live up to the raw energy and puffed-up confidence of her earliest material, and after 2005's lackluster
The Naked Truth
, her musical output slowed significantly. Rap changed many times over in the 14 years between
and
's fifth proper studio album,
9
, and the nine songs here see one of the genre's superpowers riding with those changes. At first, he trappy production and cloudy samples of "Bag" clash with
Kim
's flows, but by the hook the song and the vocalist adapt to each other. She gets similar results singing over the skeletal and bass-driven R&B instrumental of "Too Bad" and the hissing, slightly off-rhythm rhymes on the minimal "Auto Blanco." In moments like these, it's exciting to see a veteran rapper leaning into new styles rather than just throwing it back to the time they were on top. The Queen Bee spark that made her stand out in the slow bounce of "Go Awff" and the pop fun and raunchy lyrics that defined some her best early songs is reactivated on "Found You," a vulgar sex anthem that finds
trading sexually explicit rhymes with
City Girls
O.T. Genasis
over a reinterpretation of
Bubba Sparxxx
's 2005 hit "Ms. New Booty." ~ Fred Thomas