Songfacts®:

• "The Jump Off" was a big-time party starter in 2003, loaded with energy and propelled by a thick beat from Timbaland, who produced it. Timbaland was still at the top of his game; a year earlier he produced Justin Timberlake's Justified album.
  
  
  The song was a return to action for Lil' Kim. It was released as the first single from her 2003 album La Bella Mafia, her first since The Notorious K.I.M. three years earlier. In the interim, she made some high-profile guest appearances, particularly on the 2001 remake of "Lady Marmalade" for the movie Moulin Rouge.
  
  At the beginning of the song, she makes her entrance:
  
  I been gone for a minute now I'm back with the jump off
• Lil' Kim got her start in Notorious B.I.G.'s group Junior M.A.F.I.A., where she was the only female rapper. They had a few hits from their 1995 album Conspiracy. Kim signed with Atlantic as a solo artist and released albums in 1996 and 2000, using producers from Notorious B.I.G.'s camp, particularly Puff Daddy. For La Bella Mafia, she broke away from this group and used a new set of producers, including Timbaland. "The Jump Off" represents a fresh start.
• Long before Nicki Minaj claimed the moniker, Lil' Kim called herself "Black Barbie," which she does in this song:
  
  Black Barbie dressed in Bulgari
• Mr. Cheeks, known for his work in the Lost Boyz crew, features on this track. His biggest hit came in 2001 with "Lights, Camera, Action!"
• Kim followed up "The Jump Off" with "Magic Stick," which features 50 Cent. That song was slated for 50 Cent's debut album, Get Rich Or Die Tryin', and was supposed to feature Trina, but it ended up going to Kim with 50 listed as the featured artist. The song rose all the way to #2 even though no video was made to promote it.
  
  It ended up being her last big hit. After she lied to investigators about a 2001 shooting, Kim went to jail for perjury in 2005, around the time her next album, The Naked Truth, was released. The single "Lighters Up" was a minor hit.
• The album title, La Bella Mafia, comes from the 1997 TV movie Bella Mafia.