VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Nia Key, 19, Reveals How To Succeed As A Female Rapper

Rapper Nia Kay revealed her creative process and the challenges she’s overcome as a female rap artist in her new uInterview.

“My creative process, it has changed over the years,” Kay told uInterview Founder Erik Meers. “I started off writing when I was six, and when I got of the age of I would say about 16, I just started, you know, just recording in the studio, just off of my brain like no pen and pad, I just would go in the studio and just say whatever would come to my mind. That’s really how you get the most authentic music because you don’t have time. Like it’s on your feet, it’s like next line, next line, so it’s really from your heart and what you feel and what you’re thinking or what you’re going through.”

The 19-year-old rapper says the biggest challenge she’s overcome as a female artist is getting people to take her seriously.

“A lot of females, they have that issue, but I felt like although people were always going to be judgmental, and people are always going to have something to say, and people are always gonna think ‘Okay she’s a female. Can she rap or can she not?'” Kay said. “But I feel like I’ve always changed everyone’s mind. Like once everyone has heard me rap I’ve never been in a situation where somebody has said like ‘Oh she can’t rap.’ Or ‘She’s weak.’ Like every guy or every female that I rapped in front of, from small to huge, has literally gave me my props and told me like at such a young age how amazing I am, so that’s what really you know gave me the courage to do what I’m doing.”

The “Where You Going” performer says she gets her musical talent from her singer mother and rapper father. She said she started off singing with her mom in the car, but at age six, after hearing herself sing on video, she decided to try rapping instead.

“She told me to listen to the video, and I’m like ‘Okay!’ thinking it was about to be fire,” she said, recalling hearing herself sing for the first time.” So I listened to it and I was just so, so disappointed. Like I was crying and everything. I asked her, why would she do this? Why would she tell me I could sing? All that, and my mom was telling me like, ‘You’re young!’ Like, ‘You’re young, Nya!’ Like, ‘I’m not gonna crush your dreams!’ And ever since then I said, ‘Oh you’re not gonna crush my dreams, but I’m about to find another one.'”