Posted by For years, Lil Kim has publicly chastised her portrayal in the 2009 Notorious B.I.G. biopic Notorious, citing it to be unrealistic.
On November 2, the trailblazing Hip Hop legend is set to tell her truth from her own perspective with the The Queen Bee memoir book, co-written with veteran Hip Hop journalist and former HipHopDX music editor Kathy Iandoli.
“I’m excited to finally get to tell my story after all this time,” Lil Kim told PEOPLE in wake of the The Queen Bee’s announcement. “Many people have thought they knew the story of Lil Kim, but they have no idea.”
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While the intricate details of The Queen Bee may be revealed this fall, the story of Lil Kim has impacted Hip Hop culture with numerous highlights over several generations.
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As the only female artist in the late Biggie’s Junior M.A.F.I.A. rap crew, the Brooklyn-bred Lil Kim quickly established her own solo presence; her 1996 double-platinum debut album Hard Core created a subgenre for sexualized female rap stars, a career that spawned reportedly over 15 million albums and 30 million singles (as of 2016) and also bridged women’s high fashion into Hip Hop.
The 46-year-old Grammy Award-winner also infamously went to prison in 2005 for perjury, a move chronicled in one of the earliest rapper reality shows with BET’s Lil Kim: Countdown to Lockdown.
Both Iandoli and publisher Hachette Books promise the memoir to live up to the first album title, however.
“I didn’t know what a ‘tell all’ meant until I helped tell this story,” Iandoli assured on Instagram in addition to the press release.
“Lil Kim not only blazed trails for women in Hip Hop, but also inspired the careers of those who followed,” Hachette Books penned in the press release. “However, life at the top hasn’t been easy, either. Lil’ Kim also talks about the hidden moments of her reign: her complicated high-profile relationships, the misogynistic industry she fought to change through sex positivity, the challenging double standards of self-image and beauty in the spotlight, and the momentous act of loyalty that ultimately landed her in prison.”
Lil Kim’s last studio album, 9 arrived in 2019. Revisit it down below ahead of the book’s November 2 due date.