Rap
BALTIMORE | SWEDEN | LONDON | SRI LANKA | QUEENS | TRINIDAD
Rye Rye (w/Robyn), “Never Will Be Mine” | M.I.A., “Paper Planes” | DeLon diss track to M.I.A | Nicki Minaj , “Itty Bitty Piggy” | Keys diss track to Nicki Minaj
Rye Rye is a rapper/dancer from Baltimore. The talent is signed to N.E.E.T (Not in Education, Employment or Training) Recordings, a label founded by M.I.A.
M.I.A. an English singer/rapper of Sri Lankan Tamil descent, who came on the scene in 2004 and debuted her first album, Arular in 2005. She has gone on to add 2 additional albums to her discography and has been nominated and won some of music’s top awards.
Rye Rye’s song, “Never Will Be Mine” features a Swedish recording artist that goes by the name of Robyn.
BALTIMORE
Enjoy the below links to articles about the Baltimore rap scene:
- merdj.com/blog/2010/08/20/is-the-baltimore-hip-hop-scene-in-a-fragile-state
- nytimes.com/2006/09/10/arts/television/10cara.html
- citypaper.com/arts/story.asp?id=13862
Since we’re on the topic of Baltimore rap, we couldn’t leave out rapper Keys, who made a diss video 
directed at Nicki Minaj in 2010. Key’s version was over the beat on Minaj’s “Itty Bitty Piggy” track (which was sampled from a Soulja Boy track which could have been sampled from some other song…).
SRI LANKA
A Sri Lankan rapper, DeLon, made a diss track directed at M.I.A sampling “Paper Planes”. He accuses M.I.A. of taking on the image of a terrorist. DeLon’s music has made it to the U.S. Billboard charts a couple of times and he is the 2008 Derana Music Video Awards winner of “The Best Rap Performance”.