Might ESSENCE Magazine Writer’s Millennium Diss From 2000 Be The Reason LIL’ KIM Pulled Out Of The ESSENCE FEST?

subdue her “sexy”—brow beating her with deep words of discouragement all wrapped up in positive psalms put forth to preserve the power of  and to “The People.”

This was all due in part to what others saw [in Lil’ Kim’s vulgarity] as “empowerment” and labeled it feminism and her: a feminist. I don’t recall Lil’ Kim ever proclaiming to be a feminist or that her music was feminism personified.

Either way, that brought out the “feminists,” who, instead of taking their argument to the world, had too many people to try and narrow down all who viewed Lil’ Kim’s music as feminist, so the only person they could come for was her—then that way, whomever so dareth giveth they rap ‘whore’ such ordained a title shall parish when they got that “word.”

That “word” (regarding sex, hip and women) notoriously came from Essence magazine’s Akissi Britton and that “word” went a lil’ something like’kiss:

Peace, Kim, 

As a young Black feminist, I felt it was time to clear a few things up. Now, Ma, I’m not hating on you. In fact, I love you. I love your flow and I love your energy. You have a skill that cannot be denied. No question, you are partially responsible for the strong feminine presence in hip-hop right now. It wasn’t so long ago when female rappers couldn’t even go gold. Your debut album, Hard Core, went multiplatinum. When you stepped up to the mike, you commanded money, power and economic respect from the industry and consumers alike. Female artists have topped the charts, raked in sales and even have big Hollywood types, socialites and top designers dying for you all to show them some love. There’s no doubt that many of you have made your mark in this music biz. With your rhymes and attitudes, you and your sista emcees represent every facet of a Black girl’s life–the ghetto, thugged-out shorty, the God-blessed, scripture-spittin’ sister and everything in between. In each of you we see a piece of us. You’ve become the voices that let the masses know our generation of young Black women will not be ignored. 

But I’m having a problem when all these voices are being classified as empowering and feminist. While your lyrics may speak the truth of some young women’s realities–hard-core sex, drugs and the rough street life–they don’t empower women in these situations to get out. I know the word feminist gets thrown around a lot in hip-hop these days, but let’s not get it twisted. Just because a voice is feminine doesn’t mean it’s feminist. To carry that label means that you are engaged in the battle to fight political, economic and social sexism. And these days we have so many things threatening to consume us–Black women are dying of AIDS at a growing rate; our presence in the prison system is increasing, due in part to our intimate involvement with men in the drug game, a role that you’ve often glamorized and glorified in your music; and we are still experiencing forced single parenthood, domestic violence, police brutality and the complete breakdown of