Music Millennium

Reviews:

NULL Since the 2000 release of her numbingly inconsistent The Notorious K.I.M., Brooklynhip-hop ghetto queen Lil' Kim has become more associated as a travelingmedia spectacle than as an actual MC. It was the influential late rhyme slingerNotorious B.I.G. who first gave his sexually brazen protthe'hood alias Queen Bee, a moniker that personified Kimberly Jones'take charge '96 debut Hard Core. La Bella Mafia is a smartlycrafted statement album that downplays Lil' Kim's Versace obsessedcrossover ambitions. Instead, on the sneering Middle-Eastern threat "Getin Touch," Kim boldly declares "Biggie left me the torch, so I'mholding it down."

And for the most part she does, as she recruits such street-worshiped beat minersas Kanye West, Mobb Deep's Havoc, EZ Elpee and Scott Storch. "I CameBack for You," finds a focused Kim proclaiming her allegiance to the block,while "Heavenly Father" offers a somber side to the female rap iconas she painfully details her public split with longtime Crooklyn crew JuniorMafia. Ironically, it's only when Lil' Kim goes for commercial appealon such blatant radio anthems as the Timbaland produced track "The JumpOff," that La Bella Mafia stumbles. Yet, although hip-hop'sprovocative fashion plate still "rock rhyme in high heel shoes," whenLil' Kim confidently tangles with street rhyme phenom 50 Cent on the bluesytrash-talking romp "Magic Stick," there's no question who stillwears the crown as hip-hop's Queen Bee.