I doubt if anybody on this message board has even heard Lil Kim's album to say if its 5 mics or not.
But anyway, they were a hardcore East Coast magazine when they first came out, but when they went Nationwide they started giving West Coast albums 4 mics, groups that people on the East Coast had never heard of, people like Ant Banks and Mac Mall. I remember one issue they gave Gang Starr's Step Into The Arena 3.5 mics and some West Coast group 4 mics. That was around the spring of 1991.
My point is when they first started in the very, very, very first issues it was all about East Coast boom bap (KRS 1, Rakim, Brand Nubian, Jungle Brothers, etc.). But when they wanted to go nationwide they knew they had to give West Coast albums 4 mics even if nobody in New York was listening to it.
You guys probably don't remember that far back, but there was a point when The Source was a local magazine in Boston. Before they graduated college and moved to New York.