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Ever since the Internet turned every last drip-drop of intellectual property into the featured item at an ever-extending, all-you-can-download digital buffet, nobody is even sure if concepts such as underground and mainstream exist anymore.
But Chicago electro-hop diva Kid Sister straddles the line with the best of them. After cutting her chops on the Windy City’s underground party scene with mash-up DJ duo Flosstradamus, this MC (real name Melisa Young) signed to A-Trak and Nick Catchdubs’s Fool’s Gold imprint before crashing popular consciousness with her big 2007 single, “Pro Nails,” costarring Kanye West.
During the past year, Kid Sister has dropped a pair of ultra-savvy slabs: an album-length mixtape called Kiss Kiss Kiss and the more official Kiss and Tell EP. But that’s not the only way Sister stays relevant with the bloggers and iTunes browsers. The new year has already seen her perform alongside Internet-rap darling Danny Brown. Plus she’s also slated to appear on Chris Brown’s next album.
There used to be a more defined division between popular music and its alternatives. But with increasing access to limitless amounts of media, those lines have never been more radically blurred. And Kid Sister is a prime example of how to stay relevant in this era’s digital free-for-all.
