Thursday, October 9th, 2008
Ok, she’s really not being allowed to record anything—but for all intents and purposes, we probably won’t be hearing Lil’ Kim bust any bars until she wiggles her way out of this mess. The popular production duo Trackmasters is suing Kim after she refused to live up to their contract, allegedly due to their refusal to let her work with Akon (“Blame It On Me” is right, dude).
Trackmasters—also known as Poke & Tone—claim they paid off $200,000 of Lil’ Kim’s debts and spent over $2 million moving their company to Jersey for her. The pair are looking for complete restitution and a court order restricting any Brookland employees from working with Kim on any music. Ever! If Kim fails to beat (or settle) the suit, she better hope the Pussycat Dolls come up with a new reality show to judge fast.
[Photo: Getty Images]
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
There’s no tradition in hip-hop more exciting than the feud. Since the earliest days of street-corner rhyme battles, MCs have been taking each other head-on, fighting to be the best on the block, the hottest in the neighborhood, or the king of the whole game. Rap beefs can originate anywhere, from a subtle slight to a full-on threat. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re tragic, and sometimes they’re just plain weird. Here, from old-school word wars to semi-automatic shootouts, we count down the ten biggest feuds in rap history. Click into the gallery below to begin. [Photos: Getty Images]
10. T.I. vs. Lil Flip
The battle between two of the biggest mouths in the south kicked off in 2004, when Houston's Lil Flip started taking shots at Atlanta's T.I. while the latter was incarcerated. Tensions escalated for nearly a year (T.I. dissing Flip onstage; Flip threatening to shoot T.I.'s son) before finally boiling over in March 2005, when the pair and their crews brawled in the parking lot of Houston fast-food joint Cloverburger.
High Point: T.I.'s wickedly funny deployment of old publicity photos featuring Flip dressed as a leprechaun and eating a bowl of Lucky Charms.
Winner? T.I.
9. Jay-Z vs. Noel Gallagher
When Jay-Z was announced as headliner for this year's Glastonbury festival in England, Gallagher, Oasis's guitarist and loudmouth-in-chief, called the choice "wrong" and blamed the rapper for slow ticket sales. Jay fired back that Gallagher's comments were made "out of ignorance" and, on his new track "Jockin' Jay-Z," got the last laugh: "That bloke from Oasis said I couldn't play guitar/Somebody shoulda told him I'm a fucking rock star."
High point: Jay's first 90 seconds on the Glastonbury stage, where he fake-strummed a guitar and warbled a gleefully off-key version of Oasis's "Wonderwall."
Winner? The Jigga Man
8. Ice Cube vs. N.W.A.
Sometimes best friends make the worst enemies. When Ice Cube left pioneering gangsta rap group N.W.A. in 1989 over disputes about royalties and tensions with manager Jerry Heller, he sparked an all-out war with ex-homeys Dr. Dre and Eazy-E, who accused him of being a coward and dubbed him “Benedict Arnold.” The animosity continued until Eazy-E's death of AIDS six years later.
High point: Cube's 1991 single "No Vaseline": "Hey yo, Dre, stick to producin'/Callin' me Arnold, but you been a dick/Eazy-E saw your ass and went in it quick."
Winner? The West Coast
5. Bill O'Reilly vs. Hip-Hop
Right-wing pundit O'Reilly has declared a virtual one-man war on rap, using his Fox News pulpit to take to task everyone from Jay-Z ("corrosive") to Nas ("vile" and "an abomination") to 50 Cent ("a pinhead"). In 2002, when Pepsi hired Ludacris as a spokesman, O'Reilly branded the rapper a "thug" and called for a boycott of the company; Luda was fired the next day. But rappers have struck back, too: Nas called him a racist and organized a protest outside Fox HQ earlier this year.
High point: The open letter from Ludacris's mom blasting O'Reilly's hypocrisy: "Let's keep it real ... Fox produces shows, movies, video games and air commercials that depict violence and sex, and offend and degrade women." Oh snap!
Winner? Rupert Murdoch
4. 50 vs. Everybody
Curtis Jackson is rap's version of the drunk in the corner who picks a fight with every schmo who walks in the bar. His relatively short career has included face-offs with just about everybody, including Ja Rule, the Game, Fat Joe, Jadakiss, Nas, Kelis, Shyne, Cam'ron, the Game again, Scarface, Kanye West, Young Buck, and even Oprah Winfrey. 50 wins more than he loses, but he's also a savvy enough businessman to know that no buzz is bad buzz.
High point: "How to Rob," the unreleased 1999 track that got him signed to his record deal, in which a young and hungry 50 takes shots at everyone from Mike Tyson to Mase. Can you believe it? Dude took on Mase!
Winner? 50 Cent's accountant
3. MC Shan/Marley Marl v KRS-One/BDP
The Hatfields & McCoys of rap squabbles. In the mid-'80s "Bridge Wars," Marley Marl's Juice Crew, out of Queens' Queensbridge Projects, and KRS's Boogie Down Productions, representing the South Bronx, tussled over which borough could rightfully lay claim to being the birthplace of hip-hop. Their O.G. back-and-forths and geopolitical battle rhymes set the blueprint for years of rap beef to come.
High point: "The Bridge Is Over," BDP's 1987 classic and one of rap's first classic dis songs.
Winner? The South Bronx, the South South Bronx
6. Lil Kim vs. Foxy Brown
These two gangsta molls --- Kim was a Biggie hanger-on, Foxy ran with Nas and Jay-Z --- traded insults for years on tracks like "Bang Bang" and "Play Around." Then, on February 25th, 2001, things got real, when a confrontation between the two ladies and their entourages outside NYC hip-hop station Hot 97 turned into a gunfight, and one unfortunate participant walked away with a bullet in his buttocks.
High point: After the shootout, when Foxy offered Kim a truce, Kim gave her rival the cold shoulder, saying, "We'll never be friends." Meow!
Winner? Kim went to jail, but Foxy went deaf -- we'll call it a draw
7. LL Cool J v Kool Moe Dee
This old-school feud, one of rap's longest, started when former Treacherous 3 member Kool Moe Dee accused the young upstart LL Cool J of copying his style. LL responded with the seminal "Mama Said Knock You Out," and Moe Dee shot back with "Let's Go," where he rewrote two famous initials to stand for "Lower Level/Lackluster/Last Least/Limp Lover."
High point: The cover of Kool Moe Dee's 1987 album How Ya Like Me Now, which pictured LL's trademark red Kangol hat being crushed under the wheels of a Jeep.
Winner? Limp Lover, if only for the "Mama Said..." video
2. Jay-Z vs. Nas
This battle between NYC's two heaviest heavyweights wasn't just for the keys to the city --- it was to see who would inherit Biggie's crown as King of New York and, by extension, the best rapper alive. Before the pair finally made peace in 2005, their showdown gave us half a decade of violent threats, adultery accusations and burned effigies, not to mention two of the greatest dis tracks in history (Jay-Z's "Takeover" and Nas's "Ether").
High point: The 2001 Summer Jam, Hot 97's annual hip-hop blowout, where Jay debuted "Takeover" and flashed a Jumbotron photo of Nas associate Prodigy as a teenage ballerina.
Winner? Hip-hop
1. Biggie vs. Tupac
Rap's most infamous, outsized beef is also its most tragic, with neither combatant making it out alive. Onetime friends turned bitter foes, the two titans in the East Coast-West Coast wars of the mid-'90s sparred about who shot who and who slept with whose wife until gunplay silenced them forever. Perhaps unfairly, Diddy and Suge Knight emerged unscathed.
High point: Tupac's great, scathing Biggie dis track "Hit 'Em Up," which feature possibly the most direct opening line in beef history: "First off, fuck your bitch and the clique you claim."
Winner? Nobody
Monday, August 25th, 2008
Lil’ Kim may have named an album Hardcore, but Faith Evans‘ upcoming tell-all, Keep The Faith, makes clear that when it came to The Notorious B.I.G., it was his r&b-singing wife that brought the fury.
There I was, rocking a black skully cap and a heavy goose-down jacket, tiptoeing into the elevator and pressing the button to go up to the second floor, where his bedroom was located…
I got to Big’s bedroom door, turned the knob, and went inside. As soon as I saw a small lump next to Big’s large frame, I flew into a rage, ran over to the side of the bed, and pulled back the covers. I grabbed some chick out of the bed and started beating her ass. At some point, the chick’s wig came off in my hand: It was a short, cropped wig. I stopped throwing punches for a minute to get a good look at the chick I was beating up. It was Lil’ Kim. She was completely butt-naked, yelling as I pushed her around the room.
“So you’re not f*cking her, right?” I screamed at Big. “Yeah, you not messing with her anymore right?”
Faith also claims that she never slept with Tupac Shakur, despite his Biggie-baiting that the two were lovers. We believe you, Faith! Just don’t hit us! [SixShot]
[Photo: Getty Images]
Related Material: The Murders Of Notorious B.I.G. And Tupiac (100 Greatest Celeb Scandals Of All Time)
Friday, August 8th, 2008
Spotlight Live employee Syed Rahman has confessed to killing partygoer Ingrid Rivera during Lil’ Kim’s birthday celebration at the club last Sunday. Rivera, who had spoken to Rahman earlier that night, had been kicked out of the club for accidentally entering the men’s bathroom. After failing to get one of Rivera’s friends to join him on the roof, Rahman told Rivera he could get her back into the party. He then took her to the roof and, following an argument, beat her in a utility shed. Rahman is being charged with second-degree murder, and if found guilty, will face up to life in prison. [AP; Photo: Splash News Online]
Thursday, August 7th, 2008
A woman thrown out of Lil Kim’s birthday party at Spotlight Live on Sunday was found beaten to death on the roof of the building early yesterday evening. Detectives searching for the missing Ingrid Rivera, 24, had visited the Times Square nightclub earlier in the day, but without checking the rooftop loft. Her body was eventually found by a maintenance worker. Lil’ Kim quickly released a press release mourning the death of Rivera and claiming no previous knowledge of the incident. While there’s no reason to assume Kim would have known anything, no one can blame the convicted perjurer for being cautious. [NY Post]
[Photo: WireImage]
Monday, August 4th, 2008
Lots of rappers say they won’t snitch, but Lil’ Kim has the perjury conviction to prove it. When her entourage got into a shootout with friends of rival Foxy Brown in downtown Manhattan following a Hot 97 interview in February 2001 (leaving one injured), the trash-talking sex freak behind hits like “How Many Licks?” and “Magic Stick,” told police she hadn’t been near the shooting. She changed her tune in front of a grand jury, but asserted that manager D-Roc, a shooting suspect, wasn’t present, and that she didn’t even know bodyguard C-Gutta, also accused. After witnesses had them leaving the scene in the same limo, D-Roc and C-Gutta were sentenced to over ten years each, and Kim was up for perjury.
Lil’ Kim claimed innocence - how was she expected to remember if her manager had shot people in front of her? But thanks to damning testimony from Junior M.A.F.I.A. members Cease and Banger, she was found guilty and sentenced to a year and a day for being less than forthcoming. [Photo: Getty]
