Vinia Mojica is a singer from Queens

Queens

Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....

, New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, best known for her collaborations with the Native Tongues

Native Tongues Posse

The Native Tongues is a collective of late 1980s and early 1990s hip-hop artists known for their positive-minded, good-natured Afrocentric lyrics, and for pioneering the use of eclectic sampling and later jazz-influenced beats. Its principal members are the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, and A Tribe...

 collective and other hip hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

 artists.

Her recording career began in 1989 with the song "Acknowledge Your Own History", from the Jungle Brothers

Jungle Brothers

The Jungle Brothers are an American hip hop group that pioneered the fusion of jazz and hip-hop and also became the first hip-hop group to use a house-music producer. The group began performing in the mid-1980s and released its first album, Straight Out the Jungle, in July 1988...

' 1989 album Done By the Forces of Nature

Done by the Forces of Nature

Done by the Forces of Nature is the second studio album by American hip hop group Jungle Brothers, released November 9, 1989 on Warner Bros. Records. Recording sessions for the album took place in 1989 at Calliope Studios in New York City, and production was handled by the Jungle Brothers. It was...

. It would be the beginning of her association with the Native Tongues Posse - which would produce De La Soul

De La Soul

De La Soul is an American hip hop trio formed in 1987 on Long Island, New York. The band is best known for their eclectic sampling, quirky lyrics, and their contributions to the evolution of the jazz rap and alternative hip hop subgenres...

's 1991 hit "A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays"" - and continue with A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest

A Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985, and is composed of rapper/producer Q-Tip , rapper Phife Dawg , and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A fourth member, rapper Jarobi White, left the group after their first album but rejoined in 2006...

 and later with its second generation of Mos Def

Mos Def

Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...

, Talib Kweli

Talib Kweli

Talib Kweli Greene , better known as Talib Kweli, is an American hip-hop artist and poet from Brooklyn, New York. His first name in Arabic means "student" or "seeker" ; his in Swahili means "true"...

, Hi-Tek

Hi-Tek

Tony Cottrell, better known as Hi-Tek, is an American record producer and rapper from Cincinnati, Ohio. He is best known for his work with Talib Kweli on his Reflection Eternal album and on Black Star...

 and Common

Common (rapper)

Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. , better known by his stage name Common , is an American hip-hop artist and actor....

.

Mojica also made numerous appearances on Heavy D's album Nuttin' But Love (1995) and his 1997 single, "Water Bed Hev"; collaborated with French hip hop

French hip hop

French hip hop is the hip hop music style which was developed in France, and is considered the second worldwide hip hop scene after the U.S....

 group Alliance Ethnik

Alliance Ethnik

Alliance Ethnik was a 1990s French hip hop group. It was composed of five members from different origins, but all French; Algeria, Congo, Italy, and France.-History:...

 in 1995 and 1998; and made guest appearances on albums by Heltah Skeltah

Heltah Skeltah

Heltah Skeltah is a hip hop duo consisting of members Rock and Ruck . The two are members of New York supergroup Boot Camp Clik, along with Buckshot, Smif-N-Wessun and O.G.C....

, Rahzel

Rahzel

Rahzel M. Brown, also known as simply Rahzel, is an American musician and virtuoso beatboxer, formerly a member of The Roots.Nicknamed the "Godfather of Noyze," Rahzel is known for an ability to sing or rap while simultaneously beatboxing, as evidenced in his performances of "Iron Man" and his...

, and Pete Rock

Pete Rock

Peter Phillips , better known by his stage name Pete Rock, is an American record producer, DJ and rapper. He rose to prominence in the early 1990s as one half of the critically acclaimed group Pete Rock & CL Smooth...

. Outside of hip hop, she has also recorded and performed with Mary J. Blige

Mary J. Blige

Mary Jane Blige is an American singer-songwriter, record producer and occasional actress. She is a recipient of nine Grammy Awards and four American Music Awards, and has recorded eight multi-platinum albums. She is the only artist with Grammy Award wins in Pop, Rap, Gospel, and R&B. Blige has...

, Youssou N'Dour

Youssou N'Dour

Youssou N'Dour is a Senegalese singer, percussionist and occasional actor. In 2004, Rolling Stone described him as, in Senegal and much of Africa, "perhaps the most famous singer alive." He helped develop a style of popular music in Senegal, known in the Serer language as mbalax, a type of music...

 and Arto Lindsay

Arto Lindsay

Arthur Morgan Lindsay is an American guitarist, singer, record producer and experimental composer. He is a 1974 graduate of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida....

, as well as downtempo

Downtempo

Downtempo is a laid-back electronic music style similar to ambient music, but usually with a beat or groove unlike the beatless forms of Ambient music. The beat is sometimes made from loops that have a hypnotic feeling...

 artists like Cibo Matto

Cibo Matto

Cibo Matto are a New York City-based band formed by two Japanese women, Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, in 1994...

, DJ Spinna

DJ Spinna

DJ Spinna is an American hip hop music artist and producer, who, according to Allmusic.com, has "remained strictly an underground artist despite his astonishing talent."-Biography:...

, and, in 2005, Jneiro Jarel

Jneiro Jarel

Jneiro Jarel is a United States-based music producer. For over a decade he has provided listeners with an eclectic mix of sounds ranging from hip hop, to electronica, to electro-pop, to Brazilian funk, to bass music. Noted for his abstract style, he is also known for his beat-making alias Dr...

. In 2002 Mojica collaborated with French electro artist DJ Mehdi

DJ Mehdi

Mehdi Favéris-Essadi , better known by his stage name DJ Mehdi, was a French hip hop and electro producer of mixed French and Tunisian origin.-Biography:...

 (credited as Espion) on "Anything Is Possible", a track later remixed by Château Flight.

In 2003 Mojica finally released her debut single, "Guilt Junkie" (with the B-side "Sands of Time"), and is currently preparing her solo debut LP on Fruitmeat/Giant Step Records.

Solo discography

• "Guilt Junkie" / "Sands of Time" (2003)

Produced by GE-OLOGY

"Guilt Junkie" mixed by Jabari "Magneto" Palmer

"Sands of Time" mixed by Elliott Thomas