She can croon like a classically trained vocalist and she can spit nasty, airtight lyrics without taking a breath. Azealia Banks has arrived and the fiery 19-year-old is turning heads with her risqué debut single, 212.

Raised in Harlem by her mom after her father died, Banks showed flare for musical theater, acting, and singing at a young age. After attending the prestigious La Guardia High School for the Performing Arts, she dropped out to pursue her recording career.

Lately, the Harlemite's lyrics have been booming through nightclubs around the world. Called "the future of music" by Kanye West on New Year's Eve, Banks is one of the only five people West follows on Twitter.

As "Miss Bank$," the lyricist released her first recordings, Gimme A Chance and Seventeen (produced by DJ Diplo) in 2009. She signed briefly with XL Records but decided to leave after "they started checking out." She released another single, L8R in 2010.

Banks remains unsigned but has hinted at a possible signing to West's G.O.O.D. label. Although the comparisons to Nicki Minaj (who went to the same high school) have started, Banks is resisting: "She's only had one album, and she's only been famous for a year, so she doesn't have that big of a legacy for me to be the new her. She's her and I'm me."

It was the best kind of accident. When she was eleven years old, Jasmine Villegas (who goes by Jasmine V.) was walking her little brother to a music video shoot and singing verses to help him prep. What she didn't realize was that a record company intern was walking by at the same moment. He asked to record her voice for a friend and the clip wound up in the hands of her current music manager, Gabriella Mosci.

Jasmine has since been acting, performing and penning songs that contemplate love, life and loss amid the pressure of having to grow up too fast. "These songs are girl anthems, but I try to give guys some guidance on how to treat girls. Hopefully, more people will relate to the songs that way," she says.

In 2008, Filipino boxing champ Manny Pacquiao discovered Jasmine on YouTube and asked the then-14-year-old to sing the National Anthem before his bout with Juan Manuel Marquez. Jasmine ended up spending months in the Philippines, performing on one of the biggest television stations int the country. In 2009 she produced her own music video for her song, Serious, and it led to her signing with Epic Records. She appeared as Justin Bieber's love interest in the video for his hit, Baby, and toured with (and briefly dated) him in 2010.

The San Jose, California native who is mixed Mexican and Filipina has stayed true to her roots in her lyrics, and in her debut mixtape, S(he) Be(Lie)ve(d), which she released in September 2011. Her debut album is due out next year.

As a child, rapper Yelawolf spent much of his time shuttling between 15 different elementary schools. It was on one of those sojourns that the 31-year-old first connected with rap: "When I lived in Antioch, they’d bus us down to the projects in Nashville to go to school and everything just started clicking with me with rap music and in life...I felt the connection, these kids had the same problems that I had at home." And although he'd live in many more cities, work odd jobs and attempt a career as a professional skater before dedicating himself to music, the seed was planted.

In 2005 Yelawolf (real name: Michael Wayne Atha) appeared on the reality series, The Road to Stardom with Missy Elliott, and it was during that show that he declared Outkast's André 300 as his biggest inspiration. He signed to Colombia Records in 2007 but his debut album was never released and he was dropped by the label after producer Rick Rubin came on board. "I was like, 'You don’t get it, cool? Then I guess I must be extra special.' I had to be arrogant because I could've been messed up thinking that if he didn't want me, I must have nothing to offer," he says.

Yelawolf's vibe doesn't veer remotely in the direction of glam. Instead the half-Cherokee, half-white rapper has focused his lyrical lens on creating biting critiques that talk more about the decay he sees around him – whether as a kid growing up in the south or as an adult who has weathered more jobs and more cities than most. “I can go any direction – arena rap or even the bluegrass hip-hop shit,” he says. “I would never sign myself down to any style.” His blend of hip-hop and classic rock, what he calls his “dirty Southern sound” caught lyricist Eminem’s attention late last year.

His mixtape, Trunk Muzik, was his first project with a major label, and became an underground hit after it was released in January 2010 under Ghet-O-Vision Entertainment and Interscope Records. In January 2011, Eminem revived his Shady Records project, signing Yelawolf and underground group Slaughterhouse to the label. "Yelawolf and Slaughterhouse, it's kinda phase two of Shady," Eminem said at the time. "It's the new generation of Shady Records, and as we're trying to rebuild our label, it's exciting for hip-hop....” Yelawolf's debut album, Radioactive, which Eminem is producing, will be released Nov. 21.

When Toto Gonzalez (otherwise known as Mr. Pauer) was a kid growing up in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, his musical worlds seemed totally disconnected: "My mom listened to boleros, my dad to traditional Venezuelan music, my older brothers to American 80’s pop, and to socialize I had to learn how to dance salsa and merengue."

It wasn't until later that Gonzalez took those various pieces as a producer and remixer and developed his signature "electrópica" sound, something he describes as different than digital cumbia and more like a mixed "sancocho" soup. "I connected the dots unconsciously creating an array of sounds that identify with the culture I grew up with.”

Gonzalez has lived in Miami for the last 18 years and coined his DJ name using the Spanglish he hears around him: "Pauer" is how "power" would be pronounced and spelled in Spanish. His dance-inducing "electrópica" remixes earned him a 2011 Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Album for his debut album, Soundtrack.

Spinning sets from Seattle to Venezuela, Gonzalez channels his musical bilingualism with intention and vigor: "Estoy mezclando de manera irónica cosas que no tienen mucho 'match', pero de repente estan allí, abrazados y van uno al otro haciendo esa mezcla." [I'm ironically blending things that don't really match but suddenly, there they are, in an embrace, making the mix.].

Refusing to accept the limits of the corrido style, Jorge Santa Cruz and his Grupo Quinto Elemento Santacruz are among a growing crop of new musicians who are playing “corridos visionarios." Santa Cruz earned his place on the corrido map with his signature style, "norteño tuba," and hit singles like Mas Que Una Diosa, Secuestro Express and Gerencia MZ. His group's latest album La Supermacía (June 2011) features rancheras, romantic ballads, traditional corrido melodies and newer, more experimental styles characteristic of "enfermedad masiva."

Santa Cruz's corridos often touch on the violence that has overrun his home state of Sinaloa, Mexico. In fact, the title of his album is actually a reference to a longer song title, "La Supremacía Guzmán," a song, says Santa Cruz, that alludes to the near omnipotent power of drug cartel leaders like Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzman, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and one of the richest and most wanted men in the world.

Santa Cruz says he doesn't know to what extent corridos influence narco violence, but says he tries not to sing negatively or positively of the real-life characters that fill his lyrics. In the end, he says he prefers to sing romantic ballads above all else. "...Con el debido respeto a mis colegas que cantan corridos sangrientos, eso no es lo que a mí me gusta, a mí me gusta más cantar canciones románticas." [With respect for my colleagues who sing bloody corridos, that's not what I like to do, I prefer to sing romantic songs.]

It wasn't supposed be this way. When the trio of teens from Monterrey known as the Colectivo 3Ball Monterrey first started remixing dance classics under the guidance of mentor and eventual manager Toy Selectah, they never thought their biggest fans would be so into...pointy boots.

With their addictive, hyper-electro cumbia/regional/Afro remixes, the three DJs -- Erick Rincon, Sheeqo Beat and DJ Otto (16, 18 and 18 years-old, respectively) -- have become the most popular in the unlikely tribal guarachero dance scene, which extends from their hometown of Monterrey, Mexico to as far as Texas and beyond. Although the trio hardly ever sports the "vaquero"/pointy boot ensemble often associated with those in the tribal scene, they've happily embraced the audience that's helped catapult them to international stardom.

3Ball MTY released the world's first "official" tribal guarachero EP in 2010 and the five-song collection soon found its way to internet buzz. Their remixes have been called "the future of regional Mexican music," and their reach is ever expanding, with their first official video, Intentalo, receiving more than four million hits on YouTube.

He's straight out of Compton, but Tyga won't be carrying the torch for West Coast gangsta rap any time soon. At 22 years old, Tyga could be the next full-fledged star from the New Orleans-based Young Money Entertainment roster that includes Drake and Nicki Minaj.

In 2006, Tyga (real name: Michael Ray Nguyen Stevenson) was an unknown teenager looking for his big break in rap. He got it one year later when he ran into his cousin, Gym Class Heroes frontman Travie McCoy, at a Los Angeles sneaker shop: "[Travie] was telling me all this stuff he was doing with his band and I thought he was just lying to seem cool." Once Tyga realized his cousin wasn't kidding, he sent McCoy a mix-tape of his work. Months later, Tyga was performing on tour with Gym Class Heroes, making a guest appearance on the song Arms Race by Fall Out Boy, and performing with his future boss, Lil Wayne, at the 2007 MTV VMAs.

After dropping his debut album, No Introduction (a joint release between Pete Wentz's Decaydance label and Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment), Tyga has gone on to appear on the hit tracks BedRock by Young Money and Deuces by Chris Brown. His follow-up album, Careless World: Rise of The Last King, is scheduled for a November release and features Far Away, a Bruno Mars-inspired single featuring American Idol alum Chris Robinson.

Cuban-American model/singer Nayer Regalado got her start early, modeling as a kid and then moving to Los Angeles at 14 to record her first demo. In 2011, Nayer was featured on Enrique Iglesias' single Dirty Dancer and on Pitbull's chart topper, Give Me Everything. In July 2011, Nayer released her second single Suave (Kiss Me) featuring Pitbull and Swedish-Congolese singer Mohombi. On the set of her new video for the single, Nayer talks about her influences and future projects.