"Who Gets Off The Plane? No Lil Kim, It Was Biggie"

West Coast rap pioneer Too Short has opened up on his past Lil Kim "Call Me" 1997 collaboration and why he needed Notorious B.I.G.'s approval to get the Queen Bee on wax.



According to Short, Biggie was so protective of his Junior M.A.F.I.A. first lady he surprisingly confronted the rapper himself.

"I paid for the tickets for Kim and her manager to come to Atlanta and I went to pick them up to take them to the studio and who gets off the plane? No Lil' Kim, it was Biggie," Too $hort recalled with a laugh when he appeared on Wednesday's episode of "RapFix Live." Though $hort and B.I.G. had built a good rapport before the Brooklyn great was slain in 1997, prior to recording with Kim, they didn't really know each other. Too $hort remembers B.I.G. coming off the plane on a pair of crutches that he was forced to use after he was involved in a car accident. The two sat down to talk, and according to $hort, the Notorious one inquired about the Oakland rapper's intentions with his artist and sometime love interest. "So what's goin' on with you and Kim? What's happenin'?" Too $hort remembered Biggie asking. (RapFix)

Despite the tense encounter, Short said Biggie then gave Kim permission to link up with him.

After $hort explained to Big that he only was interested in recording with Kim for his single, the "Juicy" rapper approved the collaboration. "He wanted to know what was goin' on with his little thang before he let it happen," $hort said. "So I explained it to him... and sure enough she showed up on the next flight. We got in the lab and we worked it out." Kim, who titled her 1996 debut album Hardcore, had become known for her sexually explicit lyrics, just like Too $hort, but the first version of "Call Me" didn't quite meet expectations, $hort revealed. "Believe it or not, we did the song and everybody said, 'Man, it's not dirty enough,' " $hort laughed. (RapFix)

Last spring, Kim spoke on how big of an impact B.I.G. had on America.

"I will say this though, I will say that I always felt like Biggie and Tupac's deaths were bigger than how they tried to make it out to believe it to be," Kim explained in an interview. "It's bigger than [former Death Row Records owner] Suge Knight being involved. I think it was even over his head. Them two were very powerful guys. They both could have ran for mayor just like Arnold Schwarzenegger and probably [have] won. You know, I think the government was looking at it like, 'We could not have these two hood dudes with this much power running for mayor and something like that and winning.' They would have lost control I think. I think it was way deeper than what people would like it to be." (Lady T Video)

In 2009, female rapper Charli Baltimore offered her take on Kim claiming she was Biggie's girl.

"Kim goes out of her way to say she was B.I.G.'s girl," Charli said in an interview. "No, Kim wasn't his girl. Straight up! She wasn't. She benefited from the situation because she became Lil Kim. She has a career and she's grateful to a n*gga for helping her in that aspect, but she was never his girl...B.I.G. and I were together. He bought me a car. I mean n*ggas wasn't doing stuff for no reason. It was no game!" (Hip Hop Gossip Site)