Nearly ten years after the release of her last album, Eve-Olution, Eve is plotting a return to hip hop with the release of a new album, Lip Lock, later this year. Preceding the album will be a handful of street singles, the first of which is expected later this month. In a recent interview, TheWomenOfHipHop.com caught up with the pitbull in a skirt to see where she's at musically, what she thinks of some of today's female rappers and who her ideal collaborators would be.
Since her hiatus from rapping, Eve has taken a number of acting roles, including parts in the Drew Barrymore-directed 2009 film Whip It and on Fox's hit musical comedy Glee. With her new album, the Ruff Ryder hopes to remind fans what she brings to the table musically.
"My whole goal for this record, since it’s been so long, I wanted to make sure that my core audience didn’t feel like Eve completely forgot about us and went to another side," she said. "I feel like this record is well-rounded. It has enough of the hard street stuff, it has some radio stuff, but it also has some stuff that people can listen to when they’re feeling down.”
Asked about the pair of emergent female emcees with similar-sounding names, Azealia Banks and Iggy Azalea, Eve said she was a fan of the former, but not so much the latter.
“I like Azealia Banks. I think her style is dope. If you listen to her lyrics, she knows how to wordplay and I think that’s cute," she said. "I’m not really into the Iggy Azalea chick. I can’t really f--k with her music, but her look is crazy. I just can’t believe it.”
When it comes to her own list of dream collaborations, Eve listed Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliott from the last generation and Banks and Nicki Minaj from this one. Unlike some of her peers, Eve said she doesn't have any beef with Minaj, although she can see why someone like Lil Kim would take umbrage.
“It’s not about publicity. It’s about wanting that respect," she said of Kim and Minaj's high-profile feud. "I think maybe that’s where Kim is coming from, like, you’re doing your thing right now and no one can take that away from you, Nicki — we all see it — but at the end of the day, if it wasn’t for Kim, she wouldn’t be here and that s--t is real.”
Eve's last album, Eve-Olution, was released in 2002.

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