Lil Kim Celebrating ‘Hard Core’ 30th With Brooklyn Orchestral Performance

Lil Kim is commemorating the 30th anniversary of her landmark debut with a special performance. The Queen Bee has announced a hometown show at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her debut album, Hard Core. Kim will perform reimagined versions of the album tracks with Thee Phantom & The Illharmonic Orchestra.

The event is described as an "elevated immersive experience celebrating one of hip-hop's defining albums and the female pioneer who helped change the culture.”

“Fans can expect an evening of orchestral renditions of some of the album's most iconic anthems including ‘Not Tonight (Ladies Night Remix),’ ‘Big Momma Thang,’ ‘Crush On You,’ and ‘No Time,’” says the official press release for the event. “Alongside her signature stage presence, captivating energy and her fearless fashion.”

After making her debut alongside Junior M.A.F.I.A. in 1995, Hard Core announced Lil Kim as a solo superstar a year later. Released on Lance “Un” Rivera’s Undeas Entertainment imprint, the album would go on to platinum success on the heels of several hit singles, cementing Kim as a formidable artist in hip-hop. 

“The sexy part was just me,” she recalled in 2016. “Everyone felt like I should be me. I guess when they met me, by their words, they felt like that was the dope part about me. I was very fly already and super sexy as a young girl. They were also worried about me being so young and sexy and over-the-top provocative. They kind of marketed me as an older girl, even though I wasn’t. They just did not want me to change who I was, because everything I did was super sexy, and they were just like, That was dope, because it had never been done in the hard core, gangsta hip-hop music that I was making.”

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