“Is Nicki Minaj Secretly Helping Lil Kim?”

When I heard about the beef between Lil Kim and Nicki Minaj I couldn't help but think that the only reason that Lil Kim is even in the news is that Nicki is around.  So to hear that it may all be media hype to puff up Kim's visibility isn't all that surprising.

A Beef, as defined by the legendary Urban Dictionary means: to have grudge or to start one with another person. That's the first entry anyway. The entry that more than likely applies to the alleged 'beef' between newcomer Nicki Minaj and the one and only Lil Kim is the third definition of offered by Urban Dictionary:

When rappers aren't good enough lyricists to have fans or just want some publicity, they will copy Tupac and Biggie and set up a beef with another rapper.

Yes, I am stating flatly that the beef between Nicki Minaj and Lil Kim is a B.S set up meant to pump up the troubled career of Lil Kim which has not been the same since her year long prison stay in 2005 and appearance on the reality ballroom competition show “Dancing with the Stars.”

The evidence is quite readily available. In numerous interviews during her rapid rise from mixtape superstar to record industry phenom Minaj has cited Lil Kim among her influences. If you had the chance to do a favor for one of your heroes with simple series of Twitter posts you'd likely do it and so far that's all the time this beef has cost Nicki.

Kim needs the rub badly as her latest work is a Mixtape being sold through Paypal; not exactly the high profile launch Kim had in mind when she finally escaped her second record company, Brookland Media, in 2009, three years after she was sprung her from Atlantic Records, and signed with Jay Z's vanity label Roc Nation, a co-venture of Jay and Live Nation.

The inklings of a beef have been bubbling up since Nicki began distancing herself interviews from the sexual lyrics of the rappers, like Kim, who influenced her growing up. Kim allegedly took the Nicki's comments as a slap at her and shot back by offering Black Friday, her new Mixtape titled pointedly to take aim at Nicki's monster hit Pink Friday.

The cover shot for Black Friday features Lil Kim standing over the cut up body parts of a woman dressed suspiciously like Nicki on her Pink Friday cover. Black Friday also features the song Pissin' on'em set to the tune of Nicki's Did It On'em. All of which might lead one to believe this beef is for real.

However, as with anything in our modern media culture one must wonder who has what to gain from such a beef. Nicki Minaj has neither anything to lose or gain by taking Kim on which she has done on her Twitter feed, @NICKIMINAJ, with toss of insults of Kim's bragging about sales of Black Friday which Kim claims sold more than 113,000 CD’s in a single day at 9.99 a pop.

While that 113,000 number is undoubtedly fabricated (it would mean Kim made more than a million dollars in a single day through Paypal sales of a CD that would be mailed to buyers and not available as a download) the sales that have undoubtedly happened since the supposed beef with Nicki began this week have no doubt been real if not in the range of 113,000.

The fact is, if Nicki Minaj says nothing Kim's album languishes in obscurity but one tweet from Nicki and suddenly Kim is a trending topic on Google and Yahoo, MTV is covering the story and Kim likely moves a few of the discs she claims to have already sold.

A win for Lil’ Kim and a bit of charity from Nicki Minaj.

via "Is Nicki Minaj Secretly Helping Lil Kim?" ~ Zoiks! Online - Music. Stand-up. TV. Film. "Funny Name. Seriously Entertaining.".