Khia

The saucy rapper Khia may be a one-hit wonder, but that one hit was still influencing Southern rap two years after its release. The sexually demanding "My Neck, My Back" was the perfectly formed Dirty South hit. Khia -- real name Khia Finch -- had recorded the nasty song in her native Florida where the club DJs gave it numerous spins. Dirty Down Records first released the track, but support from radio and club DJs in Georgia, Alabama, Kansas City, and St. Louis brought the single to the attention of the larger Artemis label. By the summer of 2002, Artemis had made the track a nationwide hit. Meanwhile, Internet message boards started to fill with rumors that Khia had been murdered by an angry boyfriend. Khia blamed the rumors on her former label, but she couldn't dodge it when the www.thesmokinggun.com website posted no less than 20 of her mug shots from her pre-hip-hop days. Her next single, "The K-Wang," barely made an impact and her promised second album, Street Preacher, never materialized. Khia's career was assumed to be finished until 2004, when the hit single "Slow Motion" by Juvenile and Soulja Slim copped a bit of "My Neck, My Back." Khia's original version and some new remixes were released on a single in England, where it went Top Five in October. The same month, Khia made an appearance on Trick Daddy's Thug Matrimony album. ~ David Jeffries, Rovi