20-year-old rapper Rye Rye’s new single "Never Will Be Mine" is heating up the charts, and with her debut album "Go! Pop! Bang!" set to be released later this year, she’s on top of the world. Find out more about Ryeisha Berrain in her Kidzworld bio!
Rap Queen @ 16
Baltimore-native Rye Rye burst onto the music scene at just 16. She first started writing lyrics and rapping simply out of boredom. She used to like writing poetry and stories when she was younger, and writing rap lyrics came naturally from that. Her sister introduced her to a friend who was in the music biz: rapper Blaqstarr; Rye Rye blew him away by leaving a rap message on his answering machine.
Blaqstarr & a "Rye"-sing Star
Blaqstarr started collaborating with Rye Rye on some of her material as soon as he realized how talented she was. After he helped her create the 2006 club hit “Shake it to the Ground,” it was a whirlwind of up-and-coming cutting-edge music artists like U.K. dance-rap artist M.I.A. and European DJ Diplo wanting to work with her and hailing her as the freshest voice in the industry. Although she was still in her junior year of high school, Rye Rye cut classes to go overseas and on tour with M.I.A.
Rye Rye said she wanted to get into hip hop because: "I honestly felt there was potential there. I love performing, singing, dancing, all of that and I felt that given the opportunity I would destroy it.”
Check out Rye Rye's summertime jam "Sunshine", featuring M.I.A. below:
Go! Pop! Bang!
Rye Rye’s debut album was slated to come out back in 2009, and she was in studio with the Neptunes to produce many of the tracks, but the album’s release was held up. In the meantime though, she got to record and remix several songs with M.I.A., and her song “Bang” was featured as a single on the soundtrack The Fast and the Furious. She also got rave reviews for her live performances, especially at the 2010 SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. And she debuted her song “Sunshine” off the album at the Alexander Wang fashion show last year.
Listen to Rye Rye’s single “Never Will Be Mine” featuring Robyn:
