Sitting pretty with a soft spoken ease about her, Miki Vale embodies the modern feminine hip hop lyricist. Sometimes referred to as a ‘conscious rapper,’ Vale shares what’s real to her and others in her life with her fan-base. Hearing her music and watching her performances, Vale’s audience is pulled into her vibrant and soulful perception of the world.

Known for saying she’s been “doing this since she came outta her momma’s uterus,” Vale has been composing rhymes since she was a child, and performing in front of audiences for the past 12 years. Through exposure to her older brother’s music collection, from a young age Vale was surrounded by a disparate variety of sounds from artists like Marvin Gaye, Minnie Ripperton, MC Lyte and Public Enemy. She pulls aspects from these artists and mixes them into her music, together with a healthy dose of her own lyrical style.

“I want to make responsible music,” she proudly states. “I mean, all that trashy stuff is cool, but kids now think that pimpin’ is cool and that shaking their ass is cute. Sometimes it’s just too much.”

To stay true to her views on modern music, Vale makes an effort to produce music with a positive and uplifting message, one that encourages her listeners to think outside of the box and raise their social consciousness. However, maintaining her beliefs and morals as an artist can be a challenging when faced with the “hardcore” and “gang-banging” messages put out by mainstream artists.

“Myspace has really opened my eyes to other female lyricists, but they just don’t get a lot of shine,” she shares. “There are a lot of really talented underground female MCs, but the ones on the radio are just kind of doing what the men are.”

Through Myspace, Vale has also been able to connect with producers across the pond in London and France, and although she already works with producers in San Diego, she’s especially excited to start projects with people over seas.

“The underground sound is really popular in the UK and Europe,” she explains.

Vale feels the same as many other underground San Diegan hip hop artists: There just isn’t any support here for the local scene. With Sleeping Giant and other collaborators, she hopes to change that, and promote a heightened awareness of hip hop culture in San Diego. To Vale, the fact that most clubs downtown play hip hop, yet crowds at live hip hop shows are sparse seems incongruous.

“People ask me why I think things are that way,” she says openly. “But I honestly don’t know. Maybe if we started talking about shooting someone up or gang-bangin’, we’d get more play. I just don’t know.”

However, considering her current music’s aim to empower people to “be independent and not be a clone,” and to spread the message that being positive and showing love for others is a cool way to be, it doesn’t seem like pimping and violence is something she’ll be promoting any time soon.