Lil Kim is not at all insulted that Beyonce Knowles-Carter has repeatedly jacked her “Queen Bee” alias over the years.
The original Queen Bee says the hotel lobby singer is welcome to call herself “queen bey” because she’s earned the title.
“I feel like Beyonce rightfully so has the right to call herself Queen Bee as well. Her name is Bey-once.”
The 45-year-old Brooklyn MC was honored when Beyonce and her husband, Jay-Z, dressed up as her and Notorious BIG for Halloween in 2017.
“Lil Kim Appreciation. Hip Hop would not be the same without our original Queen B,” Kim wrote on her website.
But Kim has no love for Beyonce’s “disrespectful” fans.
“I feel like some of her fans that’s disrespectful. ‘Cause some of them be like ‘Y’all both the queen bees.’ Some of her fans are so respectful and some of them just give it up. ‘Cause she even did. She was like the original Queen Bey, and that was love to me.”
Kim says she was the original beehive before Beyonce’s fans jacked it.
“That was me, and then I had a group… That was my whole thing. I was the beehive. My fans kind of adapted the name. It’s so funny because even back then my fans would run up like, ‘I’m beehive! I’m a part of the beehive!’ They would be following me and they would all come to my concerts, and they would wear shirts with the bees on them and say they were the beehive.
Lil Kim’s debut studio album, Hard Core (1996), set the standard for female rappers from MC Lyte to Nicki Minaj to follow. The album was certified double platinum and sold over 6 million copies.
It was on her debut album that Kim first referenced herself as the “bee” in her single “Queen Bitch”.
“You wanna bumble with the bee?” She rapped on Puff Daddy’s all-star track “All About The Benjamins” in 1997.
But Kim says she doesn’t mind Beyonce laying claim to the queen bee title because Kim prefers the title “icon”.
“Oh my goodness, I love the word icon,” Kim told The NY Post after receiving the I Am Hip Hop Award for career achievement at the BET Hip Hop Awards last month. “I love it. I embrace it. I’m happy to own it. I like inspiring other women. I love it — ’cause other women have inspired me.”
