Lil' Kim

Hip-hop had never seen anything like Brooklynite Kimberly Jones at the time of her solo debut: She single-handedly raised the bar for raunchy lyrics in hip-hop, making male rappers quiver with fear with lines like "You ain't lickin' this, you ain't stickin' this . . . I don't want dick tonight/Eat my pussy right" ("Not Tonight").

Riding the wing of Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die and Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt, Kim's Hard Core helped put East Coast hip-hop back on top in the late '90s. The album's overreliance on old '70s funk samples doesn't detract a bit from the Queen Bee's fearless rhymes: In "Dreams," she demands service from R. Kelly, Babyface, and nearly every "R&B dick" in the field. A landmark of bold, hilarious filth.

The production on Notorious K.I.M. is more stylistically varied than that of its predecessor (check the sumptuous sample of Jose Feliciano's "Esto Es el Guaguanco" on "No Matter What They Say"). But there's far too much standard "mo' money, mo' problems" complaining and not enough humor (the ex-ception is "How Many Licks," another cunnilingus classic). Unlike her main rival, Foxy Brown, Kim didn't know how to be more than a raunchy clotheshorse on album. The same goes for La Bella Mafia: The likes of Timbaland and Missy Elliott contribute trademark stuttering tracks, while 50 Cent and Twista accompany Kim's often tedious, defensive rhymes. One rare highlight is "This Is a Warning," an adjustment of R. Kelly's "A Woman's Threat" and Kim's debut as a real singer -- her rich, husky vocalizing points toward a potentially tantalizing future. (ROB KEMP)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide