To hear Lil Kim tell it, she and Nicki Minaj were set to be teammates instead of rivals.
The Brooklyn rapper appeared on New York hip-hop station Hot 97 on Friday (December 17) and told host Angie Martinez that she was affiliated with Cash Money at one point and recorded with Nicki.
"A lot of people might not know this, but me and [Cash Money co-CEO] Slim were very good friends," Kim explained. "Very good friends for four or five years. My thing is this: I haven't been doing music like that for a second and I looked at her buzz as a way in for me. I'm like, 'OK, this is a good thing. This a way for me to kind of come back in.' "
After they recorded, however, Kim said the feedback to her verses was better than her younger peer's. Then, she said, the subliminal shots toward her from Nicki Minaj began.
Kim, though, said she never had any reason to dislike the upstart.
"I saw her coming up," she said. "I saw her coming in the game, like, 'All you chicks that been in the game for 10 years, move over. Y'all need to sit down.' And this and that. I thought that was disrespectful."
Kim downplayed their current frosty relationship, saying the Queens femcee was obviously influenced by the Queen Bee.
"I'm not looking for beef," she said. "I'm not looking for someone to start a war with. That's not me. That's not what I do."
