I'm interested in hearing
Lil' Kim's new album, "The Notorious K.I.M" (what's with sucky album titles this year?), although not because I've taken much notice of her, or because I've heard any of the material. In fact most of my motivation comes from the promo shots of her decked out in copious jewels, a blonde wig and blue contacts and unnaturally lighted, light-coloured skin. She looks like some Bond-girl pin up. She also looks suspiciously caucasian.
This is taken from an interview promoting her previous album:
'Kim's had some issues to reconcile. Classic dark-skin, ghetto-bred
black-girl issues of self-esteem. Body as profit. Style wars. Absence of
sisterhood. Believing the men who useta call her ugly. "They all liked
the same women," she says. "They always like that light-skin,
European-lookin' girl. And I never was her."'
So why is this Queen Bitch giving in now? There are heaps of theories about rich black rap playas living large as some sort of elaborate pretense at finally ditching the ghetto and joining the white aristocracy. But Kim's approach is disturbingly literal, and whether they're ironic or not the photos I saw fascinated me. I'd always assumed that the bitch persona of Kim, Missy et al. was some sort of perversely affirmative community identification, but maybe that's just a pose until Kim has the chance to leave "her girls" bleeding in a ditch while she goes cavorting with the republicans.
