Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part V of a six part pancocojams series on Black Barbie dolls and/or some songs that refer to Barbie.
This post presents information and an article excerpt about Lil Kim as well as selected comments about the Barbie aesthetics of Lil Kim.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2023/09/black-representation-in-barbie-doll.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. That post showcases three videos of Black representation in the Barbie doll line and presents excerpts from two online articles about Black Barbie dolls.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2023/09/lil-jackies-2008-black-barbie-song.html for Part II of this pancocojams series. That post focuses on the 2008 song "Black Barbie" by Lil Jackie.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2023/09/nicki-minajs-2018-song-black-barbies.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. That post showcases the 2018 song "Black Barbies" by Nicki Minaj and focuses on the controversary about non-Black people singing the lyrics to that song on the Tik Tok social media site.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2023/09/barbie-world-by-aqua-1997-barbie-world.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. This post showcases two YouTube videos of the song "Barbie World"; the 1997 song by Aqua and the 2023 song by Nicki Minaj featuring Ice Spice (Aqua). This post also includes an excerpt about Barbie dolls and Black girls.
WARNING:
The 2023 song "Barbie World" by Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice (with Aqua) contains profanity.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2023/09/nicki-minajs-black-barbie-aesthetic.html for Part VI of this pancocojams series. That post focuses on the Barbie aesthetics of Nicki Minaj.
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The content of this post is presented for historical and socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Lil Kim for her musical legacy. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
Because pancocojams is a family friendly blog, no Nicki Minaj videos (except for "Barbie World") and no Lil Kim videos are included in this pancocojams series.
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INFORMATION ABOUT LIL KIM
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lil%27_Kim
"Kimberly Denise Jones (born July 11, 1974),[2] better
known by her stage name Lil' Kim, is an American rapper and singer. She was
born and raised in New York City and lived much of her adolescent life on the
streets after being expelled from home. In her teens, she would freestyle rap,
influenced by fellow female hip-hop artists like MC Lyte and the Lady of Rage.
In 1994, she was discovered by fellow rapper The Notorious B.I.G., who invited
her to join his group Junior M.A.F.I.A.; their debut album, Conspiracy,
generated two top 20 singles in the United States and was certified gold by the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Lil' Kim's debut studio album Hard Core (1996) was certified double platinum in March 2001.[3] Since its release, it has sold more than six million copies worldwide[4] and spawned three successful singles: "No Time," "Not Tonight (Ladies Night)," and "Crush on You." Hard Core had the highest debut in the US for a female rap album at the time.
[…]
Lil' Kim has been referred to as the "Queen of Rap," as well as her alias "Queen Bee" by several media outlets. She has sold more than 15 million albums and 30 million singles worldwide. Her songs "No Time," "Big Momma Thang," and "Not Tonight (Ladies Night)" were each listed on Complex's list of the 50 Best Rap Songs By Women.[6] In 2012, she was listed on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Music list at number 45, the second-highest position for a solo female hip-hop artist.[7] Aside from music, she is also known for her risk-taking and luxurious approach to fashion which has inspired many artists; she has been cited as a fashion icon.[8][9] She has been noted for helping women embrace their "sexuality and femininity" in a way that was a stark contrast at the time from other female artists.[10]”…
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TWEET ABOUT THE NOTORIOUS K,I.M ALBUM COVER
From https://www.pinterest.com/pin/female-rap-room-on-twitter--687432330626132937/ \Female Rap Room on Twitter
“21 years ago today, @LilKim released the album The
Notorious KIM 🐝 The album experimented with several genres,
and introduced her now-iconic Black Barbie aesthetic.”
-snip-
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Notorious_K.I.M.
"The Notorious K.I.M. is the second studio album by American
rapper Lil' Kim. It was released on June 27, 2000, by Atlantic Records and was
her first album on her new label Queen Bee Entertainment. It debuted at number
four on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 229,000 copies in its first week,
achieving Lil' Kim's highest peak and biggest first-week sales, and reached the
top of the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. A commercial success, The
Notorious K.I.M. was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association
of America (RIAA) on August 2, 2000. It was the best-selling female rap album
in 2000 with sales of over 1.5 million copies in the United States. To date,
The Notorious K.I.M. has sold 3 million copies worldwide."...
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ARTICLE EXCERPT:
From https://www.gq.com/story/barbie-black-women-rappers-nicki-minaj-lil-kim "How Black Women Rappers Expanded What Barbie Could Be: by Heven Haile,
August 6, 2023
..."When I was a kid in the late 2000s, Barbie’s name
was a stand-in for “basic white girl,” similar to “Becky.” Today, Barbiehood
has evolved from the archetype of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman. That’s
not a credit to Mattel, but the undertaking of Black female rappers.
Two decades ago, Lil’ Kim started to mold the doll in her image. “Black Barbie dressed in Bulgari,” she declared herself in “The Jump Off.” Sporting blue contacts and a blonde wig, she sat in the driver seat of a pink convertible on the 2000 Source Awards stage. Aria S. Halliday, an associate professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Kentucky, points to Barbie’s global name recognition as one of the primary reasons artists like Kim sought to align themselves with the doll. “For Black women rappers in a hip-hop space that has been very masculine for so long, it's a lot easier to hold on to the hyper-feminine aspects of Barbie to situate themselves in a unique position,” Halliday explains. Rappers like Kim and later Nicki Minaj borrowed tropes like the Barbiecore aesthetic (see: Elle Woods in Legally Blonde) and airheaded Bimbocore (see: Anna Nicole Smith’s celebrity persona), co-opting the daintiness historically reserved for white women, in order to carve out space for themselves.
When Lil’ Kim and Nicki Minaj started beefing—the former OG ostensibly feeling threatened by her successor—a 2011 essay in Essence chalked their feud up to internalized anti-blackness. The piece criticized their alignment with white Barbie and likened the beef to a “who is the fairest of them all” competition. The writer, now anonymous, questioned why the two did not instead claim Mattel’s first Black Barbie doll, who had an afro and came with a tiny pick.
As a darker-skinned woman in the ‘90s hip-hop scene, Kim admitted that the brutality of colorism drove her to alter her appearance. Barbiehood was her way to reclaim femininity. Contrarily, Minaj’s Barbie persona was driven by theatrics instead of assimilation.. Still, she ditched the waif-thin OG Barbie model for a video vixen look, inspired and partially pressured by her rap roots. ‘‘Back in the day, in hip-hop, the thick girl was glorified. Now the rappers are dating skinny white women. So it’s almost like, ‘Wait a minute, who’s going to tell the thick black girls that they’re sexy and fly, too?’" Minaj told the New York Times in 2015, taking up the mantle herself"...
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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM TWO DISCUSSION THREADS
These discussion threads are presented based on their publishing date with the oldest published discussion thread given first. The selected comments from each discussion threads are numbered for referencing purposes only.
WARNING- Some comments in these discussion threads contain profanity. Amended spelling is used for any comment that is quoted in this pancocojams post.
Discussion Thread #1
From https://thatgrapejuice.net/2011/07/hot-shot-lil-kim-channels-barbie-shoot/ Hot Shot: Lil Kim Channels Inner Barbie In New Shoot, Published: Monday 11th Jul 2011 by David
"Check out Rap Royal Lil Kim in this brand spanking new image shot by Michael Antonio.
Drawing on the forces of her inner plastic, Ms Jones channels the infamous ‘Black Barbie‘ aesthetic, armed with a blonde wig and the best Photoshop expert Pay Pal publishing can buy .
Doesn’t she look just like Nicki Minaj?
Your thoughts?
[Pancocojams Editor- A total of 130 comments were published. The following selected comments are assigned numbers for this pancocojams compilation.]
"Yesss Kim. I Support You. Come Back & Show These Females What You Can Do 🙂 I Love Nicki To So, I Hope Both Of Them Act Right & Show Love To Each Other. We Don’t Need Another Biggie & Tupac Incident."
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2. Wow, July 11, 2011
"Kim ORIGINATED that s***. This site has recently gotten so dumb when it comes to the origin of American music pop culture. Smh…"
-snip-
This is the way that this comment was written in that discussion thread.
3.
"ok TGJ, you guys need to stop it…everyone knows Lil Kim was
doing this look WAYYYY before Nicki Minaj was even thought of…..everything
Nicki does as far as fashion was done by Kim years ago"
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4. YeaBey, July 11, 2011
"TGJ always gassing stan wars….annnywayy…i Know Lil Kim is
the original Barbie and all but she is kind of too old for that…Nicki Minaj
made it clear several times that Lil Kim is her inspiration but Nicki does a
better job with the barbie thing…I mean Lil Kim really looks like a t***** here
… thats just my opinion"
-snip-
"TGJ" are the initials for this social media website "That Grape Juice".
This is the way that this comment was written in that discussion thread.
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5. MRB, July 11, 2011
"NOW DAT THAT HARD CORE LIL KIM! THE FIRST BLACK BARBIE TO DO IT AND EVER DONE IT! THAT PIC OF NICKI MANAJ LOOKS JUST AS DUMB AS THAT TIRED MARGE SIMPSON WIG SHE’S WEARING!!!
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6. NikkiIsChillin, July 11, 2011
"This is a actually one of the better pictures of Kim that I have seen in a long time. She looks good. But I think Kims era may be over. Nicki is what is current now….not a big fan of either ladies. Just my opinion."
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7. Malibu Barbie, July 11, 2011
"But… Lil Kim was the First Black Barbie, nicki stole her whole image from her, Kim is also called the Malibu Barbie.. i cant stand the fact the swagger jackers are getting the shine the originator should have got"
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8. number1k9, July 11, 2011
"Kim MAYYY look plastic (at times)
but one thing is for sure, she definitely DOES NOT LOOK OLD, especially not in that pic.
SHE IS THE ORIGINAL BLACK BARBIE! ! !"
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9. MichaelAngelo,July 11, 2011
"Must be a slow day at ThatGrapeJuice.net The entire world knows Kim has been doing this Barbie thing since b4 Nicki was in training bra’s. Let this situation be."
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7. BrealK, July 11, 2011
"No Kim looks way better. That was her signature look for years before NM was a blip on the hiphop scene. "
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8. TresChic, July 11, 2011
"wow, the ignorance is strong here…Lil Kim started with the black barbie look, who is TGJ staff anyway?! Where did you come from?!"
9.
"Why would TGJ write that she looks like nicki minaj? That’s the most ridicuous statement I have heard from a blog site ever in my life! Pure ignorance I don’t take this site serious anymore and this is why I have hardly visited this site compared to previously when I would check way more often. Ima remove this site from my bookmark sites and best believe I won’t be checking for TGJ !"
10.
"How dumb are yall?? Ever heard of sarcasm??!!! They are taking the p*** – making a joke about who looks like who. everyone knows kim did it first but nicki does it better! LOL
I like them both but cant deny Kims raps were better (back in the day) but no one cares no more."
-snip-
This is the way this comment article was written in that article.
11.
"Leave This Lady Alone She hasnt Mentioned Nicki At All Let Her and Other Female Rappers Do There Thing !! She Started This Barbie Thing And She Said Multiple Times She Not Gonna Stop Being A Barbie And She Looks Stunning The Best I Seen Her In Months !!"
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12. Jae, July 11, 2011
"its not about who did it first, but about who made it memorable. #teamminaj"
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13. nytf, July 11, 2011
"yessss!!!!!! tgj yall always tring it ….. she look good and she started the blond wig niki stoll it smh……tgj yall going to make ppl stop coming here ,yall giving out wrong info!!!!!!"
14.
"I have always heard Nicki mention That LIL KIM has INSPIRED her in many ways..but KIm never embraced it she hated on it..I will admit i was a Lil Kim fan till she started being a hater..Omg she is to old for that mess. Nicki is a lil girl to her..when your time is over bow out gracefully dont crash and burn…. Kim was so cute before all the plastice surgery she reminded me of regular around the way girls now she looks like a black Goldie Hawn…SMDH"
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15. CURLY SUE,July 11, 2011
"I LIKE BOTH KIM & NICKI, BUT EVERYONE KNOWS LIL KIM WAS THE ORIGINAL BLACK BARBIE….DON’T BE DUMB TGJ!!!"
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16. pop royalty, July 11, 2011
"i know one thing and that’s for sure :
MY LIL SISTER HAS A BLACK BARBIE AND IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE THOSE …. RIGHT HERE ! TALK ABOUT being fake for life !!!!!!
I DO NOT KNOW WHAT YALL SMOKING ?!!!!!! CUZ IT’S REALLY THAT POWERFUL !!!!!!!"
17.
"kimmy looks great
TGJ is a hater"
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18.a-hogg,July 11, 2011
"All of yall need to shut up that s*** up about kim doing it first kim stole it from patti labelle and missy elliott.. Ain’t none of it original. So all you haters can shut up because at the end of the day they each took it from someone else."
-snip-
This is the way this comment was written in that discussion thread.
19.
"Do y’all remember when Kim took off the wig and said she was done with Barbie??? O ok. She’s trying to look like Nicki. Girl have a seat, your fanbase doesn’t call themselves barbies anymore, get a f****** clue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L51MfaWsN4 "
snip-
This is the way this comment was written in that discussion thread.
19.
"@Antonio WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME LIL KIM TRIED TO LOOK LIKE A BARBIE!? 1996 maybe? come on people, It’s obvious that Lil Kim is trying to imitate Nicki…. Now who’s the cloned clown? And for you to compare Nicki’s accomplishments to Missy, Da Brat, Lauren Hill, Foxy, Trina, Lil Kim etc.. Thank You, BUT… don’t forget to mention how long they’ve been in the game… compare that to Nicki too mmkay!? And yes Kim *TRIED* to be a barbie first and failed…..BUT!! Nicki came through and BRANDED it. Now NICKI is AMERICA’S FAVORITE BARBIE!!! that Lil Him is obsessed with. mmkay people so stop with the nonsense….Lil Kim (DID IT) But now Nicki Minaj is (DOING IT) GET IT!?"
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20. TWITTER.COM/ESSENCE_OF_SEAN, July 11, 2011
"JUDGING BY KIM’S NK ERA!
DID NICKI REALLY DO IT BETTER ? LOL HELL NO SHE DID NOT!
KIM STARTED THE LOOK AND STILL DOES IT BETTER SO PLZ."
21.
"why are people saying the last time she looked like a babire was 96? uh WRONG notorious kim 2000-2002 BARBIE era La bella mafia 2003-06 black barbie ERA 2009-now BARBIE ERA did u not see the download video? dancing with the stars? she called her self barbie and her dance partner was ken because her dance partner had blonde hair and blue eyes like a ken barbie doll!"
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22. Tangie, July 11, 2011
"@ JANE DOE NO!! hunny the proof is in the pudding..Lil Kim is damn near 40 still acting like an ASS. Let it go everybody has there time to shine her time is over imitation is biggest form of flattery..Lil kim is to old to be jumping up and down waving her hands screaming “I did It First” …"
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23. The Naked Truth, July 11, 2011
"Lil Kim did this look Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Back When!
Don’t start No Mess TGJ!
Y’all so Messy!"
**
24. Antonio, July 11, 2011
"@PINKFRIDAYLIPCHAP, the reason I compared Nicki to all those female MC’s is because her delusional ass stans are always saying she’s the best female rapper ever and I just LOL. What has she accomplished or released that would make people say such a thing. Nicki will never get the level of respect those other female got and still get because she’s a gimmick. Nicki has been one of the biggest artists in the industry for 2 1/2 years and she’s still a opening act? Kim has never opened for anybody in her 17 year career. She’s always headlined her tours and concerts. Don’t get me wrong, Nicki has some good songs like Fly, Blazin, Dear Old Nicki and I’m the Best, but her lyrics and beats are repetitive. Kim never had a song sound like the one released before or after it. Kim has real hip-hop songs like Get Money, Money Power Respect, All About the Benjamins, Hold On, Aunt Dot, Revolution, Lil Drummer Boy, F*** You, MAFIA Land, Heavenly Father, Tha BeeHive, Came Back for You, Spell Check, Last Day and Get Yours. Nicki has generic, wannabe Pop songs like Super Bass, Your Love and Right Thru Me. She’ll never be taken very seriously as an MC if she continues to make songs like that and that’s The Naked Truth"
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25. MadonnaLover, July 11, 2011
"@Antonio Said it all.
This site is trash. Nicki did NOT start any of the barbie s***, KIM did. I mean come on….she’s been calling herself that since day one. So what’s the deal? seriously? and NO, nicki does NOT do it better, thats like saying lady gaga does it better than madonna, and beyonce does it better that tina, I MEAN COME ON. You cant REPEAT history and expect someone to bow down and praise you and call you orignial. Lil Kim looks good in this picture. I mean..STOP hating. It gets you nowhere!"
-snip-
This word is fully spelled out in that comment.
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26. Speak Da Truth, July 11, 2011
"I So Love The Comments That ppl Finally Standing Up For KIM Cus We ALL KNOW KIM DID THIS 1st..And GETS MAD PROP’s For It Her New Single Coming Soon….Nicki Kool But She Is The Wanna Be Kim…"
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Discussion Thread #2
From https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/nicki-minaj-lil-kim-2-different-aesthetics.1473537/ Nicki Minaj & Lil Kim 2 Different Aesthetics
[Pancocojams Editor's Note: This thread begins with a number of photographs.].
"Nicki's aesthetic was more cartoonish, teeny-bopper & colorful without a purpose.
Kim's aesthetic was more thought out. She played with color but it was hood, high-fashion, fly & classy all in one. She adapted to many looks & always slayed."
**
2. redbud tree, Mar 6, 2018
"Kim was so gorgeous here. It's sad she couldn't see that."
onyxbeauty said:
I like Kim's too. I don't know what to call her look but grown and sexy came to mind
More like "xes kitten."
3. Kimya,
"Kim's aesthetic would be described as Ghetto Fabulous"
4.
"passingby21 said
Nicki is more playful than Kim.
I never got the comparisons. Besides being a sexualized Black rapper with colored wigs"
5.
"Nicki was doing her best Gaga impression when Gaga was hot. Kim was just Kim that’s why her looks and image live on. Kim was more fly with it, label down."
6.
"Kim toned down her look during the labella mafia, naked truth, dancing with the Stars era those looks get no love."
**
7. xlou, Mar 17, 2018
"I love Kim’s aesthetic. And I always get so sad when I think about how the abuse and music industry made her hate her looks. She used to be so beautiful !!!"
This concludes Part V of this pancocojams series.
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