Khia Shamone Finch (/ˈkaɪə/KY-ə; néeChambers; born November 8, 1976)[2][3] is an American rapper and record producer.
She is best known for her highest-charting single, "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)", as well as other notable street hits such as "Snatch the Cat Back", "Respect Me", "K-Wang", and "Next Caller".
Early life
Khia was born Khia Shamone Finch Chambers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was raised in its Germantown neighborhood.[3][4] She moved to Tampa, Florida, when she was 11.[3] Khia attended Dowdell Middle School and Hillsborough High School. She left school sophomore year after she got pregnant.[5] In 1991, Khia had her first child, a daughter also named Khia.[6] In 1992, she moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, when the father was stationed there and had her second child, a son named Rashawn, while she was living with him.[3] Before becoming a rapper, she worked as a bartender at Club XS in Tampa.[5] Her mother Carol Belinda Chambers, who was a data entry specialist died in 2001.[3][5]
Khia released her debut album, Thug Misses, in 2002 on Dirty Down/Artemis Records as a re-release from the original version by Divine Records.[7] The lead single "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)" became a breakthrough single, charting at #42 on the Hot 100 chart and #12 on the Hot Rap Tracks chart.[8] MTV News reported that she wrote "My Neck, My Back" in 15 minutes.[7]
In 2004, Khia appeared on a track with Trick Daddy and Tampa Tony called "J.O.D.D. (Jump On Da Dick)" from Trick's album Thug Matrimony: Married to the Streets.
Khia's second album was supposed to be released in 2003 by the title "Street Preacher". The album was complete by mid-2003, and was set for released by the end of 2003, but the album got shelved for unknown reasons. In 2006 Khia recorded another album to be her second album, Gangstress.
Khia's second album, Gangstress, was released on July 11, 2006, on Phase One Communications.[9] It debuted at #67 on the Billboard R&B chart. Later in 2006, Khia also collaborated with Janet Jackson on her hit "So Excited", which peaked at #90 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart.[10]
After signing to Big Cat Records, and still with her own label Thug Misses Entertainment, Khia finished working on her third studio album, Nasti Muzik, released on July 22, 2008. "What They Do" was the first promotional single on the album, which featured Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane. The first single, "Be Your Lady", was produced by Tampa's Push-a-Key Productions. Khia promoted the upcoming album by releasing a mixtape entitled The Boss Lady, which was hosted by DJ Scream.
Khia participated in the VH1 reality show Miss Rap Supreme in 2008.[11] Khia was eliminated from the competition for rapping a song recorded prior to the show, "Respect Me".[12][13]
Khia began working on her fourth album, MotorMouf aka Khia Shamone, in 2009. On May 4, 2010, she released the lead single from the album, "Been a Bad Girl". A video for the single was shot in New York by Clifton Bell.[14] The song showed a different, more sensitive side of the rapper.[15] Following its release, Khia stopped by a local ABC News show to promote the single.[16] In 2010, she told the website HipHopDX that the album will feature her singing instead of rapping on some of its cuts.[17] A second single, a smooth R&B song, "So Addicted", followed "Been a Bad Girl". That track was compiled on the Khia Shamone section of the album.[18] She's since released the singles, "Pay Your Pussy Bill" and "Georgia" from the album.[19][20][21]
Legacy
In the 2020s, Khia's name became an Internet slang term for an outdated or irrelevant person, commonly used to refer to commercially unsuccessful pop artists. The term originated in 2014 from a post of a photo of an overwhelmed fan meeting Khia captioned "This gotta be photoshopped. Ain't nobody crying when they meet Khia in 2014." Its usage exploded in 2023 on Stan Twitter, when fans of Nicki Minaj popularized the name as a stand-in for "nobody". The phrase "khia asylum" also evolved into a term for where pop artists are stuck in relative obscurity until their commercial breakthrough.[22]
^David Jeffries. "Khia". AllMusic. Retrieved 25 February 2020. The saucy rapper Khia may be a one-hit wonder, but that one hit was still influencing Southern rap two years after its release
^U.S. Public Records Index Vol 1 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), 2010.
