Lil Mama: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• Fergie
• Ebony Eyez
• Missy Elliott
• Lady Te
• Fergie
• Da Brat
• Soulja Boy Tell Em

• Salt & Pepper
• Missy Elliott
• Da Brat
• Monica
• Lauryn Hill
• Roxanne Shanté
• Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes

Birth Name:

Niatia Kirkland

Born:

Oct 4, 1989 in New York, NY [Harlem]

Genres:

Rap & Hip-Hop Music, East Coast Rap Music

Decades Active:

2000's

Jumping onto the airwaves at 17, Lil' Mama cleared a wide path for herself with the major radio hit, "Lip Gloss," in early 2007. Raised in both Brooklyn and Harlem, Niatia Kirkland grew up with seven other siblings. She found solace in writing poetry as well as dance choreography. But with the encouragement of her father, who owns record label Familiar Faces, she knew that being a hiphop artist could enhance both of those interests. Joining her father's label, she traveled to Atlanta in 2006 to work exclusively with producer James "Groove" Chambers, who helped construct the "Lip Gloss" single. After some ambitious maneuvering to get her music heard, New York's flagship, hiphop/RB station Hot 97 began playing the record constantly. When Jive Records caught wind of the "lip glosspoppin'" single, the company quickly scooped her up in January 2007 and made Lil' Mama a teenrap sensation all over the East Coast. Moving into spring and summer of that year, her reach began to expand nationally as her impressively choreographed video for the song went into rotation on MTV and BET's 106 Park. The Jive connection allowed the highschool lyricist to bring in heavyhitting producers like Scott Storch, Swizz Beatz, and DJ Green Lantern for her Familiar Faces/Jive debut album.

- Cyril Cordor, All Music Guide