Take It Outside: Foxy Brown vs. Lil Kim

I think they’re in love.

Anyway, let’s look at their latest LPs.

Album covers: Foxy looks like Steve Wonder’s niece stumbling out of her grandma’s Oldsmobile. And look how her right leg is chopped off in that picture. Tyra and Mr. Jay would not approve – the judges would send her home after than photo shoot.

Who’s that white lady on Lil Kim’s cover?

Draw

Foxy Brown 0, Lil Kim 0

Album quality. Ugh. Brooklyn’s Don Diva, which was released in May, is easily the worst rap album of the year (well, at least until Kanye’s album drops). Anyway, the album is mostly pieced together from mixtape songs, so the sequence has no flow. Plus, of the 15 tracks, about 1/3 of them feature lyrics recycled from earlier in the album! Just lazy. Don’t bother with this one.

2005’s The Naked Truth got glowing reviews at the time for some reason. It was a strong album, maybe Kim’s best, but nowhere near the “rap classic” critics were claiming at the time. Maybe it was sympathy due to it being released while Kim was in the pokey. Good, but not at all memorable – I can’t name 4 tracks from it.

Foxy Brown 0, Lil Kim 1

Sales: Brooklyn‘s Don Diva peaked at #83 on the Billboard charts – that speaks for itself. Her excuse: She was in jail and the album wasn’t promoted properly. The Naked Truth fared much better, debuting at #6, but only selling 394,000 copies – nowhere near the platinum success of her three previous albums. Her excuse: She was in jail and the album wasn’t promoted properly.

If y’all would stop getting locked up maybe you would sell more CDs.

Foxy Brown 0, Lil Kim 2

Former crews: Remember The Firm? The supergroup was a can’t-miss prospect. They consisted of the legendary Nas, hard-hitting AZ, up-and-coming rapper Nature, production from Dr. Dre and Foxy, who was red-hot at the time. But much like M. Night Shyamalan’s last three movies, what looked good on paper went horribly, horribly wrong. The 1997 album tanked and the crew split. Honestly, the album wasn’t all that bad, just disappointing.

I used to love Junior M.A.F.I.A. The crew was basically Biggie and his friends from the block – I dare you to name a member besides Lil Kim and Lil Cease. They released two albums – 1995’s Conspiracy, which was great because Biggie was still alive, and 2005’s Riot Musik, which was horrible cuz Biggie wasn’t alive. It’s a moot point anyway because Kim left the crew when members testified against her in her perjury trial. But unlike the Firm, most people at least remember Junior M.A.F.I.A.

And to set the record straight, Biggie claims M.A.F.I.A. stood for Masters At Finding Intellingent Attitudes, not Many Apple Fritters I Ate. Just wanted to clear that up.

Foxy Brown 0, Lil Kim 3

Run-ins with Johnny Law: Check out Foxy’s rap sheet:

-1997 – Spit on some hotel clerks because they didn’t have an iron

– 2000 – Crashed her Range Rover and was locked up for not having a license

– 2004 – Beat up some manicurists

– 2007 – Went to jail for a few months for violating parole

I stopped there because I got tired of looking up her offenses.

In 2005, Kim was sent to the big house for lying about her crew’s involvement in a shooting. It always bothered me how her supporters said it was so wrong that she served time for “not tattling.” She broke the law, she had to go to jail, get over it. Still, she looks like a nun next to Foxy.

Foxy Brown 1, Lil Kim 3

Famous Ghostwriters: It’s no secret that these two were backed by the biggest names in the game. Check the linear notes of Foxy’s first two albums and you’ll see more S. Carter’s than my cousin’s shoe collection. Jay-Z practically wrote her entire debut, and a bunch of stuff on the follow-up. Kim’s debut album was essentially Biggie’s second album – he wrote just about everything. But if the best rapper of all time (sorry, 2pac fans) wanted to write all my songs, who am I to stop him?

Foxy Brown 1, Lil Kim 4

Legacy: Sadly, when I see both these ladies, I see lost opportunities. These days, Foxy and Kim are remembered more for scuffling with security guards and horrible wardrobes than their talent. That’s a shame, especially since both have put out great music – albeit sporadically – over the past 10 years. Their careers are almost mirror images of each other but I’ll have to give the nod to Kim on this one, solely because she was on that ubiquitous, yet atrocious Lady Marmalade song that was played endlessly in 2001. She won a Grammy even though I remember her saying anything but Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-UH!

Foxy Brown 1, Lil Kim 5

Poor Foxy just can’t win.