“It’s 2019. My album couldn’t come out next year, it couldn’t come out the year before this. This was the year. Everything has been aligning for me perfectly”, Lil’ Kim explained shortly before dropping her new album 9.

Hyped as her “first studio album in 14 years”, even though she has released mixtapes with new material every 2–3 years, 9 is actually her ninth overall project. Although long-awaited by fans, it didn’t even sell a thousand copies in the US in the first week of tracking (maybe it only sold 999? 🙃) and failed to enter the Billboard Top 200. While selling several hundred units is not that bad in the current landscape, for a legend of this format it is somewhat shocking. Here’s 9 reasons why 9 did not fare as well commercially as had been hoped for.

 

DISCLAIMER: I’m a fan of Lil’ Kim and I do enjoy 9. The point of this post is just to set out the reasons why the album underperformed, not to ridicule her.

 

Delays

Before it strategically dropped just days after her triumphant performance at the BET Hip Hop Awards, 9 was marred by a series of delays. Originally planned for November 2018, the album was then announced for May 17, before being pushed back to July, only to be finally released nearly a year after the original date. Delays kill any sense of momentum that there is, and after so many disorienting setbacks, some fans started to doubt that 9 will ever see the light of day. Others simply forgot.

 

Changing Times

Her first three albums went platinum in no time – but there is no way she was going to shift as many units 20+ years into her career. Some of her fans will have grown up and moved on. As one of them said: “we are older and we aint buyin no damn rap albums anymore”. And now in her mid-forties, she’ll find it harder and harder to defy ageist rules of the pop culture (Madonna tried to little effect). Mainstream media aren’t that generous with their support anymore, instead trying to pitch her against younger female rappers.

 

Streaming

It’s coming up to five years since music charts started to incorporate streaming figures. We know how that impacted independent acts and so-called “veteran artists”. If you fit into both categories, like Kim, the chances of making a substantial impact on charts will be slim. Especially in the US and the UK. 9 generated such poor streaming numbers that it didn’t stand a chance of cracking the Billboard Top 200. “Spotify is hating on me”, she complained in April.

 

Where’s the CD??

Had 9 been available on CD, it would’ve most likely charted on the Top 200. Kim’s fans traditionally bought her albums on CD, and so they would this time around too – especially with such an iconic cover photo! Her Beehive didn’t stream it enough to make impact on the charts, which was easy to predict. Impressively, it still entered the US sales top 50 and even the top 10 on the rap chart solely on downloads. But not having it released physically was like shooting yourself in the foot. Such an opportunity lost.

 

Going Independent

Long gone are her days at the Warner-owned Atlantic Records. Now that she’s independent, all promotion lies on her shoulders. There’s only so much that the partner-distributor eOne can do to support her. Without a high-budget, full-blown promotion sponsored by a major label, the album’s rollout only had a very limited impact.

 

Negative Press and Bag-gage

Kim’s cosmetic surgeries are her business. Yet all those facelifts and skin whitening have – let’s face it – nothing but tarnished her reputation. By 2013, she had had so much work done that some described her as looking “like an Asian cartoon” or even “unrecognisable”. She became the target of some vile Internet memes and with no new material out, her profile as the queen of rap started to wane.

She hit a new low in spring 2016, when a series of selfies on her Instagram sparked more shocking headlines, such as “Rapper Lil’ Kim Criticized for Looking White” and “Lil Kim Isn’t Black Anymore”. And although some leapt to her defence, putting her facelifts into a wider, socio-cultural context, a big portion of Kim’s fanbase have distanced from her. The worst backlash came from her core audience, the Black community, who saw her skin bleaching as a desperate attempt to look white, a rejection of the culture she used to represent, and a grand betrayal.

Lil’ Kim in 2003 during her heyday as the queen of rap (left) and in 2016 (right)

 

Auto Tune vs Auto Blanco

“Things change, and I want to give my fans a little bit of something new. Let’s see another side of Kim. Let’s see a fun side, a sexy side”, she teased last year. It didn’t go down well with her fans. Most criticism fell on the overuse of Auto-Tune which turned Kim’s natural deep voice into a distorted vocal that is sometimes painful to listen to. Her attempts to sing in favor of rapping only made things worse. “Gangsta thing is what people expect from her”, commented a fan, and it’s hard to disagree, considering the way they embraced the rap-oriented “Auto Blanco” and largely ignored “Go Awff”. “I don’t wanna hear her mumbling through autotune. If she ain’t spitting, I ain’t interested”, said another. Others were even more cruel: “Why do they autotune her even when she is delivering a rap verse? Is the voice now that busted?”; “Autotune is the worst thing that happened to her”. Ouch.

photo: Steve Jennings

 

Too Short… Too Bad

Kim’s classic works, with their elaborate tracks and many interludes, always clocked in at over an hour. The 30-minute long 9, although tight and consistent, feels more like a stop-gap EP rather than an album proper. Plus, the more tracks on it, the more streams it will generate when listened to in full.

It’s not like there wasn’t enough material. She apparently had “so much music that there is more coming”. In the lead-up to the album, Kim released “Took Us a Break” in 2017, and two singles in 2018: Fabolous-assisted “Spicy” and Caribbean-flavored “Nasty One”. Even though all three did OK online, they were excluded from the tracklist. Did Kim want to trim it down to nine tracks just for the sake of it? Or did the point was to start afresh and leave older songs behind? Either way, this ill-judged decision deprived 9 of precious numbers which could inflate its first week sales.

 

You Are Not Alone… But You Need More Guests

These days, the more guests you have on an album, the more plays their respective fans earn you on digital platforms. Hence the increased number of collaborations albums in recent years, such as Katy B’s Honey, Ed Sheeran’s No. 6 Collaborations Project or Barbra Streisand’s Partners. Featuring only two established artists, 9 pales in comparison with Kim’s previous albums, which boasted such A‑listers as Puff Daddy, Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliott, Snoop Dogg, and even a rare appearance from the legendary Grace Jones. No such big names this time around, but how nice of her to give platform to young breaking acts Rich the Kid and City Girls!

Yung Miami of City Girls (left) and Rich the Kid (right)

 

Let’s hope that when part 2 arrives, it’ll meet with solid promotion and better reception. In the meantime, support the Queen Bee and stream 9 below. She deserves the love!