Tiye

For Tiye, Hip Hop isn’t something she discovered—it was something she was born into. The air she breathed. 

Home. 

But home has always been a complicated thing for Tiye. 

Born in Brooklyn and raised in the South, Tiye grew up between two worlds. Atlanta was where she lived, but Brooklyn was the culture that shaped her. Every school break meant a trip back to New York where Hip Hop was life. She and her cousins freestyled on walks to the corner store while her mom and uncles filled the house with the sounds of KRS-One, Run-DMC, and Public Enemy. 

But belonging was never simple. In Georgia, she wasn't always "Atlanta" enough. In New York, she wasn't always "Brooklyn" enough. Caught between both cities, she spent much of her life searching for a place where she could fully be herself. 

Even in Hip Hop, there were moments when she had to fight for space. The women she grew up listening to—Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa, Monie Love, and others—weren't a separate category of female rappers to her and her family. They were simply MCs. So when she was told in other circles, "Girls don't rap," it was a foreign concept to her. 

But Hip Hop was woven into her DNA. It was who she was. It was joyful and playful. It was family. 

But as the culture changed, so did her relationship with it. The positivity and community she loved as a child began to feel overshadowed by violence, commercialism, and negativity. After the deaths of Tupac and Biggie, her family intentionally stepped away from Hip Hop, and Tiye spent years exploring other creative paths. A child of the TRL era, she immersed herself in pop and rock music, developing a wide musical palette that stretched from Christina Aguilera, *NSYNC, and Shania Twain to Korn, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. She immersed herself in guitar and later attended music schoo 

Hip Hop never completely left her, but for a long time it felt like a home she could no longer find. 

The spark returned during high school. One day, she found herself drawn into a lunchroom cypher, trading freestyles and punchlines with friends. Her love for the craft began to return, but it wasn't until years later that she found the place where she truly came home, when she found Soul Food Cypher. 

In 2013 she attended her first cypher at WonderRoot. The experience felt like magic. It reminded her of freestyling with her cousins in Brooklyn as a child, the lunchroom cyphers as a teenager, the joy and fun of Hip Hop before the noise had drowned it out—but somehow it felt like it had something even deeper. 

Soul Food Cypher became a compass. Whenever she felt directionless, it helped her reconnect with herself and get clarity on what to do next. Whenever life felt fragmented, the cypher helped her come back together and feel whole again. It became family, community, and spiritual grounding. In many ways, it felt like church. 

Soul Food Cypher gave Tiye something she had spent much of her life searching for: a place where every part of her could exist together. The Brooklyn girl and the Atlanta girl. The rapper and the musician. The playful creative and the thoughtful observer. A place where she didn't have to choose sides or explain herself. 

A place where all of her is welcomed. 

A place where she could finally come back home to Hip Hop. 

As an MC, Tiye brings a playful swagger shaped by Brooklyn grit and Southern soul. Her style blends rapping, singing, humor, musicality, and in-the-moment self-commentary. Inspired by artists like Busta Rhymes, she approaches every verse with energy, personality, and a willingness to laugh at herself while inviting others into the story. She also relishes opportunities to fuse her love for guitar and Hip Hop together. 

Her mission is simple: to be unapologetically herself. 

She describes herself as "Big Apple Peach"—part Brooklyn, part Atlanta, entirely her own unique flavor. Through her music and presence, she hopes to remind people that they don't have to fit anyone else's mold. They don't have to live according to someone else's expectations. They can simply be. That mission has paved the way for others like SFC Next MC D- Real who once told her, “I stepped into the cypher because I saw you.” 

For Tiye, Soul Food Cypher remains the place that brings her back to the essence of Hip Hop—the place where the joy returned, where the culture felt pure again, and where she finally found a home big enough for her whole self.