Ivy Queen

Born Martha Ivelisse Pesante on March 4, 1972, in Afiasco, Puerto Rico, Ivy Queen earned recognition as the undisputed "Queen of Reggaeton." She accompanied her parents to New York during childhood, yet the family returned to Afiasco during her teenage years, allowing her to complete public schooling in Puerto Rico while her interest in the island's Latin hip-hop underground deepened. At eighteen she settled in San Juan and connected with DJ Negro, the rapper and producer, who arranged stage time for her at The Noise, a club tied to the rising reggaeton movement. DJ Negro assembled a run of CDs spotlighting The Noise, and Ivy Queen made her recorded debut on the fifth volume with the track "Somos Raperos Pero No Delincuentes." Growing weary of the scene's violent and sexually explicit lyrics, she struck out independently in 1996 with the album En Mi Imperio, which Sony picked up for distribution the next year. Sony issued her follow-up, The Original Rude Girl, in 1998; five years later Real Music released the much-anticipated Diva. Real appeared on Universal Latino in 2004, and Univision put out Flashback the following year. Sentimiento, her 2007 album, reached number four on Billboard's Top Latin Albums chart. Drama Queen arrived three years later, bringing greater R&B elements into the sound. Musa continued in a similar vein in 2012 and included the singles "Peligro de Extinción" and "Cupido." The Vendetta: First Round EP surfaced two years afterward, while 2015 delivered four separate Vendetta EPs spanning Hip-Hop, Bachata, Urban, and Salsa; these were later collected on Vendetta: The Project.