Nina Dioz

about

Hip-hop culture and music grabbed Nina Dioz early: At 8, she took her first toke of marijuana and listened to Cypress Hill at the urging of a cousin (she's since quit smoking the herb). In her early teens, she began cutting her teeth in Monterrey's hip-hop underground, at spots such as the Roche, where she kicked some of her first freestyle rhymes in the front of the club. She acquired her unusual moniker, which translates to female baby Jesus, after a woman in a cafe shouted it at her. She hooked up with five other women to form Rimas Femeninas (Female Rhymes) in 2007, a collective of rappers from different parts of Mexico and Latin America, including Afro-Chilean artist Moyenei. The group performed all over Mexico but separated after a year to pursue solo projects. Nina Dioz released the seven-song EP "Marcapasos" (or "Pacemaker") in 2007. She used it as a calling card, traveling to Mexico City to hand-sell discs at the huge flea market known as El Chopo. One of the tracks found an audience on the city's pop-heavy Reactor 105.7 radio station. Several months later, "Priefiero el Asfalto," a song from her upcoming debut album, "Nueva Escuela," was featured on the soundtrack to the Mexican box-office sensation "Rudo y Cursi," a comedy starring Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal that played at the Sundance Film Festival User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

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