Lil Kim

Stuyvesant, Brooklyn better known by her stage name Lil' Kim, is an American rapper and actress who rose to fame in the mid 1990s first as a member of the hip hop group Junior M.A.F.I.A.

During the 90s she became the self-proclaimed "ghetto fabulous" Lil' Kim turned the tables on male-dominated rap. The four-foot-eleven-inch dynamo's hard-core rap songs focused on explicit sexuality long the domain of male rappers. She also turned heads with her bold image donned outrageous outfits that often revealed more than they hid. Although most of her records bore a "Parental Advisory" sticker Kim was a critical popular success scoring number-one hits and garnering lucrative endorsement deals.

Kim and Notorious B.I.G were romantically involved , and Kim was shattered when B.I.G. married singer Faith Evans in 1994. His rumored infidelity with Kim and her being pregnant and having an abortion, became a source of gossip in the rap community, and inspired a bitter rivalry between Kim and Evans that the two would play out in the gossip columns, on stage, and with their respective record labels.

Today Kim is the only female rapper, besides Missy Elliott, to have at least 3 platinum albums so far. Kim solidified her star power in 2001, when "Lady Marmalade", a song Kim was featured on, went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. That made her the first female rapper to have a #1 on that chart.