Khia

Since 2002 Khia has held a dominant spot in hip-hop, the same year “My Neck, My Back (Lick It)” first introduced her to listeners. The song came within a hair of the pop Top 40 even though its lyrics were so explicit that the cleaned-up edit still left almost nothing to guesswork, and that breakthrough established the fearless Tampa rapper and producer whose melodic yet hard-hitting strip-club records have continued through projects that stretch from Thug Misses (2002) all the way to Twerkanomics (2018).

Khia grew up in Philadelphia before her family relocated to Tampa when she was young. Church choirs, tap-dance lessons, and local talent shows filled her childhood; she began writing verses for friends as a late teenager yet did not start performing her own raps until her early twenties. A bartending job sharpened her ear for tracks that moved crowds and also put her in contact with area DJs. Teaming with producers Donn Juan and Michael “Taz” Williams, she finished Thug Misses and put it out independently in 2001. The cut “Lick My Neck, My Back” quickly caught fire around Tampa Bay, prompting Artemis to reissue the album nationwide the following year. Retitled “My Neck, My Back (Lick It),” the single climbed to number 20 on Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop chart and crossed over to peak at number 42 on the Hot 100. It performed even stronger overseas, hitting number four on the British pop chart, and Thug Misses eventually collected gold certifications in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Although that single remains her biggest commercial achievement, it gave Khia a durable platform for a longer career. Once she identified her signature style she kept releasing music at a steady clip, even after a planned 2003 follow-up was ultimately shelved. In the years that followed she appeared on Trick Daddy’s “J.O.D.D.” and joined Janet Jackson for the Top 20 R&B/hip-hop hit “So Excited.” Both of her next two albums, Gangstress and Nasti Muzik, entered the charts when they arrived in 2006 and 2008. That same year she made her first foray into reality television by competing on Ego Trip’s Miss Rap Supreme.

After issuing Gangstress and Nasti Muzik through separate independent labels, Khia began releasing everything on her own imprint, Thug Misses. The label’s first project, MotorMouf aka Khia Shamone, surfaced in 2012 and included several R&B-leaning tracks that highlighted her singing. Love Locs arrived in 2014 and gave “My Neck, My Back” a boogie-woogie reinterpretation. Two years later QueenDomCum, her sixth album, featured the energetic “YumYum Sauce” among its standouts. The run of uptempo material continued on 2018’s Twerkanomics, which placed a cleaned-up take on “Santa Baby” alongside cuts such as “Kash Only” and “Ass Talk.” In 2022 she marked the twentieth anniversary of her debut with a fresh version of Thug Misses.