“Lil’ Kim and her security had nothing to do whatsoever with the incident,” the rapper’smanager, Hillary Weston, said in a statement February 26. “Kim had no knowledge of any argumentnor what instigated the gunfire.”

The bullets – at least 22 of them – began flying Sunday afternoon about 15 minutes after Lil’ Kim left hip-hop radio station Hot 97, WQHT.

Detectives were investigating reports that the gunfire stemmed from a dispute between the rapper’s entourage and that of a rap duo, Capone-N-Noreaga. The groups apparently exchanged angry words, then gunfire, after crossing paths at a rap music celebration sponsored by Clue, a Hot97 disc jockey, police said.

Both groups fled before the arrival of police, who found shell casings and ballistic evidence from at least five handguns. No one was arrested.

Efrain Ocasio, 31, with Capone-N-Noreaga’s group, was treated for a back wound at a hospital and released.

“What we rap about is what we live,” Ocasio told the Daily News. “I guess some people want to test that, to see if it’s real or not.” He insisted he did not know the shooters.

Victor “Noreaga” Santiago and Kiam “Capone” Holley were not believed to have been at the scene. Their last album included scorching criticism of Lil’ Kim by rapper Foxy Brown, who also was not at the station Sunday, the Daily News said.

Lil’ Kim, whose real name is Kimberly Jones, was born and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Her 1996 debut album, Hardcore, was produced by Sean “Puffy” Combs and went platinum.

Santiago and Holley also debuted in 1996 with The War Report.

Calls to Hot 97 were not immediately returned. A statement from Capone-N-Noreaga’s publicist said the duo would have no comment.