BIA (2022)

One Liner: Lady rapper who leans in to her name's Lil Jon relation.

Wikipedia Genre: Hip hop, R&B
Home: Massachusetts, but now L.A.

Poster Position: 8
Both Weekends.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  She was supposed to play last year, but bailed kind of right at the last minute.  I remember trying to research why she bailed, but never could find any reasoning.  But she's back now!

Love it when something in my twisted mind ends up being correct.  When I snagged her name off of the schedule, I literally sang like Lil Jon and said "BIA BIA!"  And then in the first song, she does the same thing!  Later on in the tunes, she actually has "BIA BIA (feat. Lil Jon)" which made me smile.  Screw it, it's fun.

Makes me think of that track that they make on screen during Hustle & Flow.  Hype and fun though.

This is a solid female rapper - as is usually the case, think Minaj, Cardi, Megan - with a good flow and nice beat selection.  One album, 2020's FOR CERTAIN, with one huge single.  She even did a remix of that single with Minaj!  This is "WHOLE LOTTA MONEY."  75.8 million streams.  

I like when she raps that she puts on her jewelry to go to the bodega.  Being someone who is definitely not from New York, the bodega concept is so intriguing.  Also, Wikipedia says this track was a TikTok hit, so we're back to that damn app now.

Searching for her name is less than helpful though.  This is not the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Braille Institute of America, or the defunct British Island Airways.  This is also not one of the many airports that use this abbreviation, or a village in Iran or a river in western Africa.  It is also not the Brazilian-born singer or the Brazilian soccer player.  Instead, this is Bianca Miquela Landrau, a rapper and model who was discovered through a reality TV show on Oxygen called Sisterhood of Hip Hop.  Since then, she's opened for Pusha T and Ariana Grande, been featured on a J Balvin track, and received a co-sign from Rihanna.

"Cover Girl" was the second most streamed last year, at 10.8 million, and is now up to 15.1 million streams.

The quarantine music video is a little depressing.  Her just videoing herself in a spare bedroom with a background and some too-bright lighting, trying to stay hype even when everything is shuttered.  Stupid COVID.  Again, though, I like the flow and the beat is good.

She has a brand new single with J. Cole on it - "LONDON" that is already up to 15.4 million streams.

Kind of fascinating that she's probably the hardest rapper on this whole poster.  Also, makes me nervous how many of her little dance moves are things that my daughters do all the time now.  Freaking TikTok.  Man, I want a Dalmatian.  Those are dope dogs.  Also, that is a great guest rip from J. Cole.  I wish they worked together more in the song, it's almost like she has her song first and then he has his song second.  Would have been cool if they had mixed it up.  But his verse is great.  Good song overall - strong beat, nice flow.

She also has other tracks that are on other people's albums - and in my opinion, I'm pissed that this meant I had to listen to sorry ass songs from Russ and Iggy Azalea.  Screw both of those dorks.

I'd go see this.  Although, I'm sure that stage will be mobbed since there are so few real rappers on this poster, so the young people are going to be all over the rap shows.