Lil' Kim - Naked Truth: Album Review

Lil' Kim, The Naked Truth (Atlantic, 2005)
When I saw that The Source was giving this five mics of course I knew it wasn't actually the modern day equivalent of The Low End Theory and Amerikkka's Most Wanted, but I thought it might be kinda good anyway. It isn't.

INTRO

An audio montage of people snapping photos and pointing microphones at Lil' Kim.

SPELL CHECK

Not bad, but not that great either. The beat's got a nice thump to it, but I could do without the silly "spell my name out" chorus. The synths on the chorus are borrowed from one of those horrible songs Jay-Z did with Timbaland.

LIGHTERS UP

The single where she kinda sounds like Lauryn Hill. Actually, she borrows a lot of people's flows on this album. The beat is great, of course, but I find the fake Jamaican sounding chorus grating.

SHUT UP BITCH INTRO

Hilarious, actually. Some pimp telling a bitch to shut the fuck up.

SHUT UP BITCH

This beat sounds like a real shitty approximation of Slim Thug's "I Ain't Heard of That." Also, I could do without this "conversational" flow of hers.

WHOA

This was the b-side to "Lighters Up." I might even like it better than that one because it lacks the grating chorus. The beat is some real futuristic sounding shit.

SLIPPIN'

Eww, this sounds like the kind of garbage that ruined the last several Snoop Dogg albums, complete with overwrought singing from some fake Charlie Wilson.

ANSWERING MACHINE SKIT 1

This wasn't even a good idea back in the days of Hard to Earn by Gangstarr.

ALL GOOD

Wow, this is a real abortion. This is the same kind of garbage the West Coast started putting out back in like '96. The Biggie sample was ill-advised, as well.

I KNOW YOU SEE ME

Yahoo for wanton sampling! Were the dudes for Camp Lo gay, anyone?

WPIMP

Oh great, the angry pimp from before is back. Somebody get this man his own show.

QUIET

Oh no, this beat sounds like the worst possible Eminem beat, if you can imagine. And she jacks his old Marshall Mathers LP flow, too. Does Teh Ghey have beef with Junior Mafia now? Maybe they can start to earn their respect back by shooting him.

DURTY

Lil' Kim as a fake reggae singer might actually be better than Lil' Kim the femcee. Because I'm sure fake reggae singing takes that much less talent. She raps during most of this though.

ANSWER MACHINE SKIT 2

I think Method Man might have used this gimmick on the second Tical album, too.

WE DON'T GIVE A FUCK

I hate these real aggressive sounding southern rap songs anyway, let alone some phony, carpetbagging approximation of them.

GIMME THAT

When I saw this, I thought it might be some remix of that silly "sexual assault is cool" southern rap song. Turns out it's something much worse.

KITTY BOX

Wow, another abortion. This is the kind of nastiness Timbaland and his ilk have wrought on rap music production.

KRONIK

Remember before when I was talking about all those horrible modern Snoop Dogg songs?

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Hilarious angry pimp man back again, making a lot of sense.

GET YOURS

Another Timbaland-esque crime scene. I hope people aren't paying TI much for these guest verses.

LAST DAY

How bad can a woman's prison be, really? It's not like you can get raped.

COMMENTS: I would suggest you just get the "Lighter's Up" 12-inch, but I'm not even crazy about it. Out of 21 tracks on this, there were two songs and three skits that I thought were pretty good.

BEST TRACKS: "Spell Check" "Lighters Up" "Whoa"