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Lil’ Kim Adopts Bad Gal Patois for ‘Dead Gal Walking’ Return

Lil' Kim 'Dead Gal Walking' Hard Core 2K13 Miley Cyrus

Everyone is throwing back to their halcyon days of late. Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP 2 is presented as a sequel to his turn-of-the-millennium classic, and now Lil’ Kim is gearing for the November 29 release of Hard Core 2013, a mixtape whose title harks back to her never-been-topped 1996 debut Hard Core. The Brooklyn-born Queen Bee’s last official album came in 2005 and her flirtations with the free-music game have been spotty (see Black Friday), but new song “Dead Gal Walking” is a strong return. The former Junior M.A.F.I.A. member adopts a dancehall patois to spit fierce melodic fire over a horn-blaring, dubbed-out, stuttering hulk of a beat. The song arrived on Halloween, begging the question: Since she and Miley Cyrus are “besties” (via Idolator), was the Bangerz star’s costume a ploy to shine some of that glaring light on Lil’ Kim? Either way, “Dead Gal” offers more than a glimmer of hope.