Brooklyn rapper Lil Kim verified her icon status in the 90s with her role in the Notorious B.I.G.s Junior M.A.F.I.A. collective and with her rock solid 1996 solo debut Hard Core. Ruthless street rhymes and larger-than-life swagger made her one of the hardest female figures in a mostly male-dominated rap scene. Lil Kims later albums didnt always live up to the raw energy and puffed-up confidence of her earliest material, and after 2005s lackluster The Naked Truth, her musical output slowed significantly. Rap changed many times over in the 14 years between The Naked Truth and Lil Kims fifth proper studio album, 9, and the nine songs here see one of the genres superpowers riding with those changes. At first, he trappy production and cloudy samples of Bag clash with Kims flows, but by the hook the song and the vocalist adapt to each other. She gets similar results singing over the skeletal and bass-driven R&B instrumental of Too Bad and the hissing, slightly off-rhythm rhymes on the minimal Auto Blanco. In moments like these, its exciting to see a veteran rapper leaning into new styles rather than just throwing it back to the time they were on top. The Queen Bee spark that made her stand out in the slow bounce of Go Awff and the pop fun and raunchy lyrics that defined some her best early songs is reactivated on Found You, a vulgar sex anthem that finds Kim trading sexually explicit rhymes with City Girls and O.T. Genasis over a reinterpretation of Bubba Sparxxxs 2005 hit Ms. New Booty. ~ Fred Thomas

Rovi