lil-kim-kevin-gates-600x600

LISTEN: Lil Kim Drops “#Mine” ft. Kevin Gates

Lil Kim is back with new single #Mine, featuring Kevin Gates, who just released a new album of his own.

In December last year, Kim announced that she was gearing up to release a new album in 2016. “I’m working on a new album for next year,” she told Hot 97. “I put up a post not too long ago; I was at my old record label. I’ve got a couple tours that I’m going to be part of.” The announcement came with the release of a new freestyle, That Bitcha remix of Omarion‘s I’m Up.

While the freestyle showed promise, I’m not a fan of this new track at all, to be honest. Kim was at her best back in the day, and while I’m absolutely not suggesting she shouldn’t release new music or anything like that, it just feels like she’s trying way, way too hard to sound on-trend with certain current types of rap. The overdone autotune, the Young Thug-level inability to decipher most of the lyrics and the lyrics which you can hear, being just arbitrarily, unnecessarily hyper-sexual, kind of like she’s trying, but failing, to sound like Nicki Minaj.

Gates’ guest verse mentions he’s been listening to Future, but you didn’t even need the obvious lyrics; he’s not exactly being subtle about his influences. And that’s the most interesting thing I have to say about his verse. To me, it feels more akin to Hopsin‘s incredible parody track No Words than an actual song.

Perhaps I’m being a little harsh because I was such a fan of her earlier work. Listen below and judge for yourself: