Rye Rye

The Baltimore sound, like Miami bass and Detroit ghettotech before it, is indigenous and prodigious, sometimes not much more than an 808 beat, a synth hook and a ghetto chant. But for Rye Rye, the Baltimore take on booty music isn't just a sound, it's a lifestyle. Growing up in Baltimore's Chapel Hill projects, she spent her teens dancing to the bumped-up BPMs -- sort of the antithesis to the drawling crunk or chopped-and-screwed sound of other hip-hop. "I looked up to Missy Elliott a lot because she could rap, but she could dance, too," Rye says. It was Rye's ability to rhyme over the helium-pitched beats (try saying "I'm not a gangster girl/I'm a ghetto superstar" at 127 BPMs) that eventually led her to Baltimore club music OG Blaqstarr. Diplo had signed Blaqstarr to his Mad Decent label and was looking for artists to produce; M.I.A. was looking for talent to sign to her new N.E.E.T. label. The stars aligned -- or at least the leggings, patterned tops and big earrings -- and before she was 18, Rye Rye was traveling across Europe with M.I.A.

"Touring with M.I.A. really opened my mind, for real, to keep me in that positive mindset," she says. "Baltimore's a place where it's real easy to get in that negative mindset. Meeting different people and being exposed to all these different kinds of music definitely influenced me and my record." Though she did record tracks like "Hardcore Girls" with UK producers the Count and Sinden, to Rye Rye's credit, Go! Pop! Bang! is best when the producers step back and let her do her thing. "Wassup Wassup," for instance, leaves Ke$ha to brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack, because it's Rye Rye who's flossin'. "It's upbeat but it keeps its heart," Rye Rye says of her take on the Baltimore sound. "I'm not trying to get too serious, I just want my record to be something you put on when you're having a bad day and it puts you in a good mood." 

These days, she admits, she sometimes needs a dose of her own medicine. Like M.I.A., she became a mom last year, and now, for someone who spent most of high school clubbing all night, the 3 a.m. feedings are, well, tough. "It can get really overwhelming," she says, "but my parents are very supportive." So's M.I.A. "She just really gave me a lot of good advice about the industry, like, not hopping on everybody's track," Rye Rye offers. "One thing she said was, 'People will judge you and criticize you, sometimes just for what you have on. So you have to wear everything with confidence.'" So far, so good, so Rye Rye. "I just want to be able to share the Baltimore sound with the world," she says. Now that the Baltimore sound has shared the world with her, she's ready to return the favor. Bang!

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