Flowers to Lil’ Mama, A Female Rap OG
Before I tuned in excitedly to Netflix’s Ladies First doc, years back (circa 2018-19) I’d read Kathy Iandoli’s (who was actually featured in the doc!) God Save the Queens: The History of Women in Hip Hop and fell more in love than I could have imagined. I would say that book changed my life, but it’s difficult for me to say considering I’d already had a love for both hip hop music and feminism. It was God Save the Queens though that made me combine my two loves + wonder why the hell I hadn’t done it before.
While reading this book (and drowning in pop culture history obsessively), I’d noticed one female rapper I knew of that wasn’t featured. As this new wave of female hip hop emerged, it’s Nicki Minaj that gets a lot of credit as the Queen of the New Female Rap Age and it’s true her impact can be reflected throughout many rap girls taking the stage now. But just weeks before Nicki’s first mixtape was released, one young rap girl’s bop was just starting to climb the charts. A little anthem known as Lip Gloss by a then seventeen year old Lil’ Mama.
Lil’ Mama in 2007
Born in Brooklyn, New York as Nikita Jessica Kirkland, Lil’ Mama is the oldest of eight kids. Her mother was a singer and her father was a DJ and musician, While her family went through personal financial struggles and her mother breast cancer, she earned the nickname Lil’ Mama taking care of her siblings while her family went through struggles, especially her mother’s breast cancer. She and her family stayed in shelters on and off until she was in eighth grade when she and her family moved to the Bronx. She expressed herself creatively through avenues like poetry, music and trained through various dances like ballet, tap, hip hop and South African. She recorded her first song at her dad’s studio after helping her put her poetry to music. Soon after, she moved to Atlanta to work with James Groove Chambers of Nappy Roots and she recorded seven songs, one of them being Lip Gloss; the song samples female rap OG herself, Roxanne Shante, who similarly, was not recognized for a while as the icon that she is.
While her peak may have been shorter than average, Lil Mama was the first female rapper I ever heard from my generation. I remember my sister and her friends putting me on to Lip Gloss in eighth grade and was popular, especially for young black girls; it stayed in my own replay heavy. A lot of her songs did. In fact, it wasn’t until now that I realized how much of an impact she had on me as a young 13-14 year old. Like Teyana Taylor, she was brightly alternative in a time where black girl alternatives were very rare in media. She dipped and mixed hip hop and pop genres before Nicki could release “SuperBass” or “Starships.” She even danced in a way that was highly similar and on point with popular male stars at the time, like Chris Brown. We skip Lil’ Mama’s piece of female rap history in the stories, books and media often, sometimes to where it is non existent.
Lil’ Mama in 2007
Lil’ Mama in her “Shoe Game” music video
The bop was released on June 19, 2007, while Nicki’s first mixtape Playtime is Over released weeks later on July 7th. By that time, Lip Gloss was already climbing the Billboard Top 100, starting at #95 and ending at the Top 10. Lip Gloss was also nominated for a MTV VMA for Monster Single of the Year in 2007, reached Gold in Dec. 2007 and again in February 2008. Her album, VYP (Voice of the Young People), debuted at Number 25 in the Billboard Top 200. After Lip Gloss’s success, Lil’ Mama had a small line of bops, including “G-Slide (Tourbus),” “L.I.F.E.,” “Shawty Get Loose,” with Chris Brown + T-Pain, “What it Is (Strike a Pose),” and was featured on the remix to Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend.” In L.I.F.E, Lil’ Mama went to a deeper place than her usual bops as both the music video and song talked on deeper topics that impacted teens such as teen pregnancy, domestic violence, and drug addiction. The video was similar to other music videos that centered on darker topics, like Ludacris and Mary J. Blige’s “Runaway Love” or Eve’s “Love is Blind.” It was a strong song, especially when realizing just how much she was enduring in her young life.
Back in 2009, Lil’ Mama did announce a second album and even release a couple songs on MySpace, but it was shelved after RCA Music Group announced it was disbanding Jive, Arista and J Records, where she was signed to Jive. Before the transition back to RCA, she left Jive and became an independent artist.
Lil’ Mama did also endure much controversy and scrutiny at the VMAs in 2010 when she hopped onstage during Jay Z and Alicia Keys’ performance of their hit “Empire State of Mind,” which shadowed her career for a time as it became one of the most outrageous moments in pop culture history. “I admire them and look up to them as role models,” she said to Entertainment Weekly, “‘Empire State of Mind’ had my emotions running high. In that moment I came up on stage to celebrate my two icons singing about NY.” She also noted in many interviews when asked about it that she had tried to reach out to both Jay Z and Alicia Keys to apologize and explain, but could not get in touch with either of them. It not only had an impact on her career but on her mental health. It hurt," she told Complex. “It took a lot of mental strength, spiritual strength, and physical strength, not to want to hurt others, not to want to hurt myself. A person could be damn near suicidal."
Lil’ Mama onstage during Jay Z + Alicia Keys’ VMA performance of “Empire State of Mind.'“
Drew Sidora, Lil’ Mama and Keke Palmer as T-Boz, Left-Eye and Chili in CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story; Soul in Stereo
Lil’ Mama also took some time to be a judge on the popular dance competition show America’s Best Dance Crew for seven seasons and also portrayed Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes in the TV biopic CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story alongside Keke Palmer and Drew Sidora; the movie generated 4.5 million viewers in one night. After the movie’s success, she toured with TLC to perform as Lopes’ substitute, which ended after their performance at the 2013 American Music Awards.
In 2015, she released the song and music video “Sausage” which went viral with 3.5 million views. And in 2016, one special highlight was when she got to honor Lil Kim with rapper Dej Loaf at VH1’s Hip Hop Honors. In 2018, she released a song and music video called, “Shoe Game,” in honor of her love for fashion on Spotify + Soundcloud.
While Nicki’s super talented and I agree her career has had wide impact on the ladies of today, Lil’ Mama hasn’t received much of any credit as a piece of female rap history and it’s long overdue. In the last few years, Lil’ Mama’s has still been making music and participated in films, but she’s also become a fashion girlie, modeling and partnering up with beauty lines.
She- like Nicki Minaj and others before and after her- choose to be a rapper at age 17 in a time where there was a void of female rappers in the industry and that in itself is revolutionary. That is female rap. Like Roxanne Shante before her, Lil’ Mama should receive her flowers as a certified Female Rap OG of the new generation, or as she would most likely proclaim, “the Voice of the Young People.” And while people may not think “voice” when they think of Lil’ Mama, in the end she was. Both she and Nicki Minaj helped ignite the flame that sparked what is now the Female Rap Renaissance.