ARVERNE — The "Far Rock Princess" is hoping to be the Queen of rap — but first she has to get through high school.
Tyrema Mosley, 14, started rapping eight years ago for her teachers at Head Start, showing off simple rhymes for fun. Since then she's released two mix tapes, filmed videos and played shows at a number of venues, including the Pyramid Club in the East Village.
“For me, first it was just a hobby I started doing,” she said.
Right now, Tyrema, who raps under the name Small Wundah, is focusing on high school at Channel View School for Research in Rockaway Beach.
There she stays low-key about her passion — although she said her friends are “supportive” and listen to her music.
Her writing is inspired by life — as well as her dreams for her future.
“I’m sort of cocky I guess. I just rap about stuff that I like,” she said. She writes all her own songs, using beats from some of her favorite artists.
“Sometimes I rap when I’m mad. When my spirits are high, I feel like writing, too.”
Small Wundah's rapping was something her parents, Tori Mosley and Ricky Barnes, didn’t even know about until Tyrema approached her mom at 10 and asked her to listen to a song she wrote, they said.
“I didn’t know she rapped. I was amazed when I heard it,” said her mom, 38, who encouraged her daughter to audition for "America's Got Talent."
Mosley knew about music, having rapped before becoming a mom, performing as Wundah Wuman, she said.
The song Tyrema rapped for her at 10, “New Slaves,” addresses violence and other issues in her community and shows her maturity as a writer, her mom said.
“She’s amazing with her writing. The studio owner says it’s like she’s 29 — she’s ahead of her time,” she said.
“New Slaves” ended up on her first mix tape, “Far Rock's Princess” — her dad's idea — which also features an uncredited collaboration with her mom, who worked on a verse to the song “Blackball."
Her mom prefers to hang in the back, she said, and both she and Tyrema’s dad, who also worked in the music industry, have been guiding Small Wundah as she starts her career.
“The business is competitive,” Barnes said. “A lot of people sell you promises.”
They don’t limit Small Wundah’s rhymes but everything she writes has to be age-appropriate, they said, and she isn’t allowed to curse.
“She knows better than that,” Barnes said, adding that their rule “broadens her vocabulary.”
“It’s easy to throw a curse in,” he said.
Small Wundah’s second mix tape, "Killen Spree," was released in September and she’s so far played shows at the Pyramid Club, The West End and the 101st Precinct’s Night Out Against Crime.
She looks up to rappers like Nas, Nicki Minaj and Remy Ma, and hopes for more shows and a single in the coming months.
Her parents’ support has helped, even though she does give “the glares” in the studio when her mom gives feedback, Tori Mosley joked.
“They know a lot of things that I don’t know,” Tyrema said. “And they inform me about what I should and shouldn’t do in the industry.”
