liberties. Per a 2009 analysis, Lil' Kim's 2000 song "Sucky My Dick"—retorting "Bitches Ain't Shit"—"moves beyond any rigid gender or sexual identity." Meanwhile, during 2002, certain singers, rather, including Usher and Alicia Keys, were leading a revitalization of R&B's soul tradition, after a decade of the rap genre, with its "Bitches Ain't Shit" model, invading the R&B genre. But by 2005, in the rap genre itself, "Bitches Ain't Shit" had seemingly stood, as New York rapper Jadakiss would hyperbolize, "since the beginning of time." And yet, in 2012, at The Chronic's 20th anniversary, Billboard magazine still found, at this track, "an elephant in the room here: the misogyny is ugly and thick, even for a rap record," as "women are treated like disposable sperm receptacles." The album was, by then, both a rap classic and a popular classic, anyway, roundly celebrated at its 25th anniversary. "A misogynistic hip-hop masterpiece and relic of the past," wrote one music journalist during the commemoration. Another journalist, meanwhile, called it "rap's world-building masterpiece." In 2020, the Library of Congress entered it in the National Recording Registry. By then, music artists of over 40 songs had borrowed from "Bitches Ain't Shit." In the process, it had become, additionally, "a gorgeous piano ballad"—a 2008 description of the 2005 cover version by rock artist Ben Folds—which entered the main popular songs chart, the Billboard Hot 100. Ben Folds cover version Development In July 2003, Ben Folds issued an EP, which covered the Cure's 1985 song "In Between Days." In 2005, still writing solo but again playing as a trio of piano, drums, and bass, Folds had his second solo studio album, Songs for Silverman, set for April 26 release by Epic Records. For the lead single, "Landed," issued on February 1, he sought a B side. Having wanted since college to put a melody to rap group Public Enemy's 1990 song "Can't Do Nuttin' for Ya, Man", he soon "found it too symmetrical for a good melody," effecting "too much of a Cat in the Hat vibe to sound serious with sad chords." Folds sought in his rap collection a classic with vocals more varying from English poetry's classic metre, iambic pentameter. He found "Bitches Ain't Shit," chose only Dr. Dre's and Snoop Dogg's lyrics"—thus omitting the other three verses, whose boasting, gloating, and slurring impart most of the misogyny—slowed the tempo, and, Folds says, "just added