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Svetha Yallapragada Rao, popularly recognized as Raja Kumari, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter from Claremont, California. Born on January 11, 1986, to Telugu parents hailing from Andhra Pradesh, India, she began performing as an Indian classical dancer at the tender age of 5 and pivoted to hip-hop during her adolescence after discovering the Fugees' The Score. Over the following years, she gained a reputation as a skilled freestyle MC, first under the name Indian Princess and then as Raja Kumari. She got her start in the music industry by penning songs for other artists, landing songwriting credits on Iggy Azalea's "Change Your Life" (2013), Fall Out Boy's "Centuries" (2014), and Gwen Stefani's This Is What the Truth Feels Like (2016) before dropping her debut mixtape Curry Sauce, Vol. 1 in 2016. This was followed by other EPs and mixtapes such as The Come Up (2018), BLOODLINE (2019), and HBIC (2022), which masterfully blended her love for hip-hop with a strong influence from film composer A.R. Rahman. The California rapper and the Indian music director had previously collaborated on the music for films such as Kaatru Veliyidai (2017) and Dil Bechara (2020). In 2023, Raja Kumari lent her voice to the title track song of the Hindi-language thriller Jawan, which entered the Top 100 of the streaming charts in India.
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