Ivy Queen

Widely regarded as one of the pioneers of the reggaeton genre, singer-songwriter, and actress Ivy Queen was born Martha Ivelisse Pesante Rodríguez on March 4, 1972, in Añasco, Puerto Rico. She spent most of her childhood and teenage years in the United States, settling in New York City and later studying music at the New Jersey School of Performing Arts. At the age of 18, she relocated to San Juan and became involved with the city's burgeoning urban scene through her association with producer DJ Negro and the music collective The Noise. Following her official recording debut on the group's "Somos Raperos Pero No Delincuentes," Ivy Queen kicked off her solo career with the album En Mi Imperio, released via Sony Music in 1997. It was followed by the hip-hop-oriented The Original Rude Girl (1998), which featured Wyclef Jean on the Top 40 single "In the Zone." After being dropped by Sony in 1999 due to poor sales, Ivy Queen appeared in a handful of reggaeton compilations such as The Majestic, Vol. 1 and Kilates, Vol. 1: Rompiendo el Silencio before returning to the spotlight with her third album, 2003's Diva. Driven by the female empowerment anthem "Quiero Bailar," which was instrumental to reggaeton's mainstream breakthrough in the early aughts, Diva obtained platinum certification in the US and ushered in a new era in the singer's career. Over the next few years, Ivy Queen reached the pinnacle of her popularity with the albums Real (2004), Flashback (2005), and Sentimiento (2007), her first album to hit Number 1 on Billboard's Latin Rhythms chart. She would repeat the feat once again in 2010 with her seventh studio album Drama Queen, a star-studded affair featuring cameos by De La Ghetto, Frank Reyes, Wisin & Yandel, and Franco "El Gorila" that was nominated for Best Urban Music Album at the 2011 Latin Billboard Music Awards. She would retreat from the public eye shortly after, returning in 2012 with the Latin Grammy-nominated Musa. Vendetta, her ninth studio effort, was released in 2015.

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