Is Lil’ Kim reinventing herself after prison?
March 21, 2007 by Staff
Filed under Entertainment
Says she’s more than ‘just a rapper’ and a larger destiny is waiting
March 19, 2007
Lil’ Kim is having none of that kind of talk.
The notorious rapper, known for her tight-fitting, showing-nearly-everything outfits almost as much as her music, clams up about her 2005 prison stint. (She was found guilty of conspiracy and perjury for lying to a grand jury about her friends’ involvement in a 2001 shooting outside a Manhattan studio.)
She’d rather speak about being one of the judges on ”The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll,” airing at 8 p.m. Tuesdays on WGN-Channel 9.
What Lil’ Kim, born Kimberly Denise Jones, will say about it is this: ”You know what? That was then, and this is now. I am moving on.”
The CW series is a talent competition in the same vein as ”American Idol.” Only in this case, judges are trying to find a new member for the pop group the Pussycat Dolls, whose pop sensibilities seem a far cry from the torrid rap Lil’ Kim performs.
She comments on the contestants, describing her role more as a Paula Abdul than a Simon Cowell.
Before her prison stint, Lil’ Kim garnered a No. 1 single on Billboard’s Hot 100 with a remake of ”Lady Marmalade,” with Christina Aguilera, Mya and Pink. She insists that doing a TV show isn’t part of a career-rebuilding effort.
”This isn’t the only big thing I have done [since prison],” she says. ”I’ve done a couple of other things, but this is the first big television show [I have done]. Basically, this was my future. This was my destiny. This was all waiting for me anyway.”
Lil’ Kim says she sees this ”Search” as a way to reveal another side of her. Whatever perceptions are out there on Lil’ Kim, she wants to send out the signal she’s more than what you see — provocative outfits notwithstanding.
”A lot of people look at me, and they say, ‘Oh, that hip-hop rapper, Lil’ Kim.’ But once you get into my inside, you realize that I’m more than just an artist, just a rapper,” she says. “I’m an entertainer, but I’m also a businesswoman.
”… As time goes by in the near future, one thing that I think people will see about Lil’ Kim as you keep watching me, you will see the evolution, and you will see the growth, and you will see the things that make you go, ‘Wow. I didn’t know she did that.’ ”
BY TERRY MORROW