Kid Sister

Chicago's Kid Sister didn't have to get her cuticles too dirty before her big breakout hit, 2008's Kanye West collaboration "Pro Nails." The rapper started performing at Flosstradamus' local parties in 2005 and was soon signed to A-Trak's Fool's Gold label before jumping to the major-affiliated Downtown. Representative of the decade's shift away from traditional boom-bap beats toward "club rap," her style leans heavily on dance pop and urban electronic genres like Baltimore club; her producers have included dubstepper Rusko, the Swedish House Mafia's Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso, and the Count and Sinden. No matter what style she's rapping over, Kid Sister's flow is remarkably malleable, her drawled timbres and rapid-fire syllables snapping like a jump rope pulled taut. In 2009 she released her debut album, Ultraviolet.