Love her or hate, Lil Kim‘s impact on Rap’s elevation to mainstream status is undeniable. However, unlike her heir apparent Nicki Minaj, the pint sized icon found it hard to function as a productive businesswoman without Diddy’s guidance- watching her once lucrative brand regress when it should have moved forward.
Now, in marking yet another legal woe for Kim, she has reportedly filed a lawsuit against her own lawyer this week- one year after it emerged she owed a total of 1 million dollars to the US Government after failing to pay her taxes for over a decade.
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According to the ‘How Many Licks’ MC, Sunny Barkats ‘tricked’ her into entering transactions that awarded he and his business partner Andrew Ro 44% of stake in a business forged to license her brand names.
Allegedly ‘wising up’ to the pair’s reported ‘thievery’ back in December, the Rapper’s suit against the pair comes after she was sued by the ‘Trackmasters’ production company for failing to fulfil her end of an agreement decided upon with them to reboot her career.
An agreement, which saw them clear the artist of a $200,000 debt she owed to former label Atlantic Records, and inject the sum of $1.6 million into a fund assigned to create new material and rescue her then ailing career.
In response to this lawsuit, her lawyers have billed it a ‘frivolous attempt for her back out of her commitments.
Situations like this give us no choice but to respect the likes of Missy Elliott and Nicki Minaj– Female MCs just as in control of their business dealings as they are of their material.
For, while we’re sure many of the Rapper’s fans will take her side on this, we doubt it’s a coincidence the last decade has seen her struggle to keep on top her business and branding, while Missy continues to make bank behind the scenes thanks to a savviness Kim has always lacked.
By no means are bashing her, but it’s a little jarring that she insists on being labelled the ‘Queen’- when it’s Nicki Minaj who continues to school her on the importance of Female Rappers being more than just a pretty and present face.