He asked me if Lil’ Kim was hip hop. Good question. I paused. He said I was thinking too hard. I said I’m a thoughtful man. I asked him Which Lil’ Kim? If you mean the little girl from Brooklyn spittin verses for Biggie, then yes. If you mean the woman running around getting face jobs and implants, then no, that’s a rap star. He asked me if Lil’ Kim was hip hop. Good question. I paused. He said I was thinking too hard. I said I’m a thoughtful man. I asked him Which Lil’ Kim? If you mean the little girl from Brooklyn spittin verses for Biggie, then yes. If you mean the woman running around getting face jobs and implants, then no, that’s a rap star. No slight to Lil’ Kim, I have no idea what kind of personal demons she’s facing or claim I could live her life bigger and better than she has. I’m just saying it’s not black or white and there are grey areas and influences with every artist. I
didn’t consider Nelly to be “a hip hop artist”, but his song about Air Force Ones is so hip hop. It’s a song about sneakers as relevant as RUN DMC rhyming about their Adidas in their time. There are rappers that MC and emcees with rap records. I related the difference to be tied to samplingboth physical sampling and interpolation. Hip hop is the original adaptation of an idea and rap music is the commercial exploitation of the result. For example, hip hoppers might create their own style by wearing their jeans a few sizes too big. A hip hop minded retailer