With the rise in quantity and quality of female emcees in the rap game, it can make you wonder is anyone being left out. From Megan the Stallion to Da Brat the female rap game is larger than it has ever been, but is there enough room at the table? Bed-Stuy female emcee Siya has been on the scene for more than 10 years now, and her fans wonder why she is not more mainstream. Is Siya the most underrated female emcee in the rap game right now?
Siya, whose legal name Michele Sherman, was born on March 23, 1987. She was first introduced on a mainstream level on the Oxygen reality TV series Sisterhood of Hip Hop in 2012, alongside Diamond of Crime Mob and Bia. While on the show she was offered a record deal by Tank and signed to his record label imprint, R&B Money.
With an immaculate lyrical flow over any beat, many fans just don’t understand why Siya isn’t a household name. Siya has collaborated with artists such as Chris Brown, Sage the Gemini and Kirko Bangz. Siya has also performed alongside artists such as Wyclef Jean at the world famous B.B. Kings, as well as opened up for Fat Joe and Fabolous during a concert at Nassau Coliseum in Long Island, New York.
Siya was born in Barstow, California to an African American father and a Puerto Rican mother and has three sisters. Due to her mother’s drug abuse and her incarcerated father, Siya was sent to live with her grandmother who raised her in the Eleanor Roosevelt housing projects in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Siya began rapping at the age of seven and entered into the music industry at the age of 12. Siya’s childhood influence was the rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. She states : “What I loved about them was how melodic their music was and that they tried different shit.”
Music became an outlet for Siya to comprehend and deal with the things she was exposed to and was feeling. After moving to Atlanta to pursue her music career in her mid 20s she built a rep and fan base for herself and caught the attention of well-known artists and major labels. Siya faced a lot of obstacles throughout her early time in the industry due to her being one of the first openly gay female rappers. While some people in the industry were afraid of how an openly gay female rapper would fit into the genre, Siya remained determined and refused to compromise who she was and stayed true to her own voice and style.
Source: parlemag.com