It’s funny how twisted hip-hop’s relationship can be with crime and punishment. A rapper’s career can be like a warped game of Monopoly: Go directly to jail, collect 200,000 record sales.
So the world must be an oyster for Lil’ Kim, the spunky Brooklyn native who emerged from a Philadelphia penitentiary on July 3 and stepped into a silver Rolls Royce Phantom surrounded by “Welcome home” posters and news cameras. Right?
If Kimberly Jones’ star already was on the rise as she grew into a reality TV cult figure on BET’s “Lil’ Kim: Countdown to Lockdown,” she must be meteoric now after serving a 10-month prison term for perjury. Right?
Not necessarily.
While her camp presumably plots her comeback, the reviews on Lil’ Kim’s future are mixed among music industry watchers.
“She’s on the downside of her career–she was never regarded as a great rapper in the first place,” said Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California and a hip-hop author. “It’s not like people are really checking for her lyrics.”
When asked for a response, Lil’ Kim’s publicist, Tracy Nguyen, didn’t issue a statement. Nguyen told RedEye that the rapper was not ready to speak to reporters.
One option awaiting Lil Kim could be a sequel to her hit original series on Black Entertainment Television. A BET spokeswoman said the cable network has made overtures to the rapper.
“It’s in discussions,” Zabrina Horton said. “But nothing is formal yet. It’s in the ‘being considered’ stage.”
The original “Countdown” drew 1.9 million viewers in its debut. “It was actually the highest ranking original series in BET’s history,” Horton said.
Boyd added that while prison stints boosted the careers and hard-core image of rappers like Tupac Shakur, he doesn’t see the same thing happening with Lil’ Kim.
“She may never be able to take her career to next level,” said Boyd, who wrote “The New HNIC: The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop.” “She’s not someone hip-hop takes seriously.”
WGCI music director Tiffany Green disagrees.
“I’m happy that she’s back,” Green said. “She can share her life lessons and all of that.”
Green said that listeners love Lil’ Kim and reasoned that fans will be clamoring for her music “after all the hype and everything.”
She did time as inmate No. 56198-054 after being convicted in March 2005 of lying to a federal grand jury to protect friends involved in a 2001 shootout outside New York radio station Hot 97.
She will remain under house arrest for 30 days and be under supervised release for three years.
On her first day of freedom, her added weight gained the most notice among some newspapers and celebrity blogs.
“She has to be a changed person,” Green said. “She’s probably coming out as a stronger person.”
Some casual fans will be drawn to Kim by the “curiosity factor,” Boyd said. But “I don’t know if it’s significant enough to translate into record sales.”
“Kim has been in the game for a while,” he said. “Her most prominent, most significant moment in hip-hop was eight, nine, 10 years ago.”
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plthompson@tribune.com
