Lil Kim, Big Influence

Lil Kim

Kimberly Jones, AKA Lil Kim is a female hip hop artist. She is known for her rap lyrics and style. She was born in Brooklyn, and had a difficult childhood and teen life. She spent most of her teen years living on the streets, and with friends. When she met Notorious B.I.G, her life was changed forever. He was beginning his career with bad boy records, and was able to get her an in. She soon became part of Junior M.A.F.I.A and made platinum records. Her fame wasn’t created instantly though. Lil Kim had to create her image in a particular way to gain an audience. Her song lyrics are sexually explicit and involve a lot of violence. Her outfits and choreography are sexually explicit as well. It is a painful truth to face, but by sexually exploiting herself Lil Kim was able to take her musical talent as an artist to the next level, and sign a contract with bad boy records. Lil Kim refers to herself as the “Black Princess.” In Perry’s reading she explores the issue of women carving out a space for themselves in the hip hop industry. Their raps need to be as strong as male rappers, but their style needs to have a feminine edge. Lil Kim’s lyrics explore the many issues that African American females face today, so they are also in a way empowering and inspiring for African American females, because they can relate to the lyrics. Another one of Perry’s arguments is that “the use of violent imagery suggests that black women are creating spaces for the depiction of black female instability and insanity” it is true that many of Lil Kim’s lyrics about drug use and violence throughout the black community shed a negative light on black culture. Yet she also talks about how much money she makes, her lifestyle, and her fortune and fame, which Perry goes on to accurately describe as the fine line between “glorification and tragedy” amongst the lyrics of female hip hop artists such as Lil Kim. Lil Kim’s success has turned her into an icon, especially for young black African American females, and the black culture in general. Lil Kim reinforces the ideology our society holds on the importance of image and beauty, and our societies obsession with how one looks and appears to others. The way that sex and violence sells in music throughout our culture says a lot about the way our society encodes and decodes messages and decides whether or not to receive them positively or negatively.