Tiallanah Martins better known as LIONE$$ is A US based female rapper. Her mother is half Indian and was born and raised in Puerto Rico and her father born and raised in Grenada making her heritage West-Indian. She was born in and grew up in the States. She attended CAPAHigh in Philadelphia where she studied theatre. Shortly after graduating didn't want to wait to become an actress, she decided she wanted to get a job and make money to get herself started. She was fired from an array of different jobs from an office managers job to a waitressing job, After months of being broke and jobless she became a bartender at King Of Diamonds a Hip Hop Nightclub/ Strip club in Miami.
She became very well known among many the rapper in the nightclub scene and used the exposure to these artists to befriend Waka Flocka Flame, who help her a lot with introducing her to producers such a Mike Will Made It, Zaytoven and Metro Boomin. She became financially stable and was finally able to begin pursuing her career which involved her passion for music - namely rap and hip hop.
LIONE$$ started gaining fame in early 2012 with her remix to Nicki Minaj’s “Blow Ya Mind” which grabbed social media’s attention and she soon gained a lot of fans on Twitter and Facebook. That same year she moved to Atlanta to be managed by Debra Antney, CEO of So Icey/Mizay Entertainment and mother of Waka Flocka Flame. She appeared on 3 songs from mixtape Salute Me or Shoot Me 4. Since, she’s released 4 mixtapes and also went on a tour with Meek Mill and Nicki Minaj – this gave her great exposure to the general public and allowed her gain a mass following on twitter with a whopping 9.8 million fans following her on the social networking site. She is now signed to Universal and is working on her debut album.
Ever since coming into the game, Tia says that in this industry, the shift in expectations of women has led to a new reality: a successful female artist must not only be talented, but also able to titillate the gaze of an assumed male viewer. Currently, Nicki Minaj is a perfect example of this. She has been influenced by earlier MCs such as MC Lyte, Foxy Brown, Eve, Missy Eliott, Lauryn Hill, Queen Latifah, Monie Love, Queen Pen, Da Brat, and Roxane Shante had far more options for onscreen representation, often appearing in the types of clothes their male contemporaries were wearing. She has her own signature style which is sexy but boyish at the same time and her hair is always curly.
The female body is rarely a site of empowerment except when it is being objectified to define
female strength through attraction, which when displayed for male satisfaction, creates little power for women. Because female a rappers' value lies in their ability to perform masculinity as well as
be sexually objectified, when a femcee is not performing the role of the sexually available coquette nor the female thug, her power and agency are nonexistent.” - LIONE$$
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