Feminista Jones –  a prominent author, activist, and social media presence – has penned an article celebrating the contributions and legacy of Lil’ Kim, an MC whose talent is doubted by few, but who suffers from the same condition as most women who pick up a mic. In describing the Lauryn Hills, Rah Diggas, Bahamadias, and Lil’ Kims of the world, more often than not, the qualifying description of “female MC” is used (as in “she’s so dope for a female MC”), and for many, such a term is more harmful than may be acknowledged through a surface interpretation. In “All Hail Lil’ Kim, The Original Queen of Hip-Hop,” Ms. Jones illustrates Lil’ Kim’s importance to Hip-Hop culture, not only as a woman, but as a lyricist, and one whose body of work is often overlooked for the more “conscious” and “empowering” content of her foremothers and contemporaries. And, while Lil’ Kim has often been criticized for having had her lyrics penned by Biggie, her place in feminist history is often overlooked.

In order for such a powerhouse woman to make her way in the male-dominated arena that was “Street Rap,” Lil’ Kim first witnessed, as did Heads around the world, some of the first women to contribute to Hip-Hop music with their male counterparts. “Of course we were there since the beginning,” Jones writes. “Our representation [was] essentially fortified in the ultra cool style of MC Sha Rock, the beautification of Lady Pink, and the head-spinning clap-backs of Roxanne Shante. Salt-N-Pepa, MC Lyte, and Queen Latifah were among those who showed and proved that the women of Hip-Hop were more than just sidekicks for men.” And, yet, the early progenitors of a female voice in Hip-Hop music were swiftly faced with a conundrum – how to embrace the culture that both begat them but also disrespected their very essence. Jones argues, “Like several cultural movements before it, Hip-Hop found itself engorged with rampant misogyny as the socioeconomically disenfranchised young men fought for some semblance of power.”

And so, as Hip-Hop matured beyond its nascency, many women began to feel inherently uninvited into a participatory role in the creation of the music. “On one hand, to prove you were ‘real’, you had to keep up with the guys and that meant everything from battling them in rap ciphers to outselling them in records or outranking them on the record charts,” writes Jones. She continues to expound on the resulting atmosphere:

Lyrically, the women tended to stay neutral when it came to gender politics, occasionally dropping a song or two in which they affirmed their womanhood as equally important. Those songs, however, did not exactly lead to women earning respect as technical artists in the genre; they more often than not simply earned the women kudos for being independent women who made feminism their own by way of this new, empowering medium. To be regarded as a “Great MC”, then, early female emcees found themselves struggling with what it meant to be women in Hip-Hop culture without their expressions of womanhood posing any real threat to the dominance of the masculinity that was usually the key to mainstream success.

It was this atmosphere that birthed Lil’ Kim, herself equal parts vocal feminist, sexually autonomous, and braggadocious. “While many female rappers made their entrance into the industry by being cosigned and promoted by a notable male figure and found themselves unable to make a real name for themselves as individual artists, Lil’ Kim would not be bound by being the only female in [her] crew,” says Jones. And, even more historically, her music has become the blueprint for the “most basic understanding of how sex-positive Black feminist women solidified their place in Hip-Hop history.”

Ms. Jones’ much-needed homage to one of music’s most influential artists goes beyond the meta and examines Lil’ Kim’s specific lyrics, experiences, and media portrayals to dismantle the notion that she is just important only as a female MC. In fact, much of her power rested in what she said and did outside of the booth. In an era when the default image of beauty was a thin, White, airbrushed supermodel, Lil’ Kim provided her fans with an image of Black beauty, and while many criticized her for sporting blonde wigs, wearing blue contact lenses, and embracing “fakeness,” to others she was the only semblance of relatability in popular culture. Jones writes of her own experience and those of countless others when seeing images of the supermodel, “many of us girls of color wished we could be so publicly adored while draped in the finest threads and jewels, making money just for waking up fabulous. Reality painted a bleaker picture and we found ourselves relating to the women who looked and lived like us.” It was Lil’ Kim who, despite her proclivity for the conspicuous, offered women another option in the overwhelmingly “Whitewashed” stereotypes. “We loved her unique fashion statements, her quirky videos, her dazzling smile and cute voice, and her undying loyalty to her hometown and the people she came up with. No matter what they said, Lil’ Kim had all people rethinking how we approached sex itself and whether or not we were ready for a sexual revolution in Hip-Hop culture,” writes Jones.  While from the outside she may have seemed like “another raunchy, vulgar, Black Jezebel rapping about selling sex and using her pussy to get ahead in life,” she was, in fact a vocal critic of double standards and misogyny. “So why did so many of us reduce Kim’s messaging to simply being a how-to guide to deep-throating (important work, by the way!) when she regularly called out gender-based double-standards and criticized misogyny for the oppressively violent bullshit that it is?,” Jones asks of herself and her audience.

Well…why? Her music, at the time she was making it, was far too often dismissed as novelty, just a woman taking advantage of the opportunities given to her (through everything, apparently, except her talent). And, now that two decades have passed since she released Hardcore, her contributions to feminism, empowerment, and Hip-Hop are once again being forgotten, albeit for a much harsher reason. Lil’ Kim has undergone a great deal of plastic surgery; enough, in fact, to make her nearly unrecognizable. While reasons for such drastic alterations vary from person to person, many feel quite certain that her decision to change her outward appearance so much harkens back to the same conundrum many women in Hip-Hop face: how do we keep it real while also being embraced? When the two don’t happen concurrently, what can be done to achieve a sense of belonging, of appreciation from within one’s own community? More often than not, physical appearance becomes the solution. “Speculative jokes about her physical appearances and changes over the year often ignore what could haven been the manifestation of discomfort in the body of an abused, used, exploited Black girl. Who knows, really?,” Jones writes.

Whatever the reason (and there are myriad – “she didn’t write all of her verses so forget what she did for women, she’s a fake MC”; “she rapped about sucking dick and how good her pussy is too too much, how can she be taken seriously?”; “she got so much plastic surgery done so she can’t be taken seriously”), Lil’ Kim continues to be remembered as a female rapper who had some serious hits and who did that wild and crazy shit. But what about the rest of her? Where has that gone?

Watch the video below for an Ambrosia for Heads mini-documentary examining women’s overlooked place in discussions of great lyricists.

Read: “All Hail Lil’ Kim, The Original Queen of Hip-Hop” at Medium.

Related: Queen Latifah Discusses Uplifting Women Through Positive Messages in Hip-Hop (Video)