(L-R: Sean Kingston, Iyaz)

There are probably millions of demo songs on MySpace. Somehow, one of Keidran Jones', aka Iyaz, got into Sean Kingston's ear and the rest is history in the making.

Kingston introduced Iyaz to his his producer and label-boss, J.R. Rotem and Rotem, in turn, introduced the Virgin Islands native Iyaz to the world with the surprise summer hit Replay. A dreamy R&B jam, "Replay" blends Iyaz' Caribbean flow with na na nas reminiscent of Akon's signature call.

The winning combination may have never happened. It took Kingston sending upwards of five messages to Iyaz on MySpace before the budding singer finally responded. Iyaz' excuse for not replying? He didn't believe the real Kingston would be spamming his MySpace inbox. After meeting up in Florida to talk shop – and party – Iyaz signed with Rotem and Kingston.

Despite his overnight success, Iyaz says he's got a lot of work to do: "I still consider myself an up-and-coming artist." What's the difference? Now he's got someone in his corner: "Sean is my 'little' big brother."

See: myspace.com/iyaz

Jason DeRulo owes his R&B fame to a freaky indie singer with a special name: Imogen Heap. The 20-year-old DeRulo has become an overnight star with Watcha Say, a slow jam that leans heavily on a hook sampled from Imogen Heap's underground hit, Hide and Seek, which was also featured in The OC and SNL. Produced by J.R. Rotem, the man behind Sean Kingston, "Watcha Say" has helped the Florida native DeRulo climb the iTunes top 10.

DeRulo first made heads turn in 2006, when he won the Showtime at the Apollo grand championship at the tender age of sixteen. Rotem quickly pounced on the young singer, dancer and actor, signing DeRulo to his Beluga Heights label. "There’s no limit to what he can accomplish. I think he raises the bar for all new artists," gushes Rotem. After getting gigs doing background vocals for Lil Wayne, Pitbull and Danity Kane, DeRulo says acting has taken a back seat to singing: "I was actually offered a role on Broadway, but I had to turn it down because my music was primary focus."

A slick dancer and promising actor, DeRulo could end up filling another role: that of embattled R&B singer and dancer Chris Brown.

See: myspace.com/JasonDerulo

Before they were hanging out with the girls on the dance floor, Far East Movement doubted if Asians could make it in rap.

"When we were younger we didn’t have a lot of Asian-American representation, other than, like, Mr. Miyagi and Bruce Lee. So something like being a musician or an actor… didn’t seem like an achievable goal," remembers Kev Nish (Kevin Nishimura), who teamed up with friends Prohgress (James Roh) and J-Splif (Jae Choung) to form Far East Movement. Launched in 2003, the crew spent two years cutting their teeth on live shows before adding respected radio deejay DJ Virman (of L.A.'s Power 106) to the mix. By 2006, the quartet had released two albums of sample-heavy underground hip hop: Audio-Bio and Folk Music.

This year, the 27-year-olds are getting national radio airplay with their single Girls On the Dance Floor, a throwback dance cut that bridges the gap between '80s freestyle and newer acts like LMFAO. The rest of the album, Animal, is also jammed with club bangers like You've Got a Friend, a collaboration with Lil Rob and Baby Bash. Sound weird for a rap group that got started with soul loops and scratchy drum breaks? Not to Prohgress: "We are influenced by where we live. Los Angeles is a cultural melting pot. You can go up one block and be around Latinos in South Central, then go to Little Ethiopia, and go up a little more and it's historic Chinatown. Our music is everything we experience."

Catch Far East Movement on Starburst & mun2 present: Sweet Contrudictions, a live concert featuring Larry Hernandez, Los Horóscopos de Durango and Flex on Thursday, September 24. You can also stream Far East Movement's new single, "2 Is Better," featuring Ya Boy, on the group's MySpace.

See: myspace.com/fareastmovement

Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte, the dudes behind the rap-rock duo 3OH!3, started dropping science in a college physics class. Now they're about to drop their first album.

With a name inspired by Colorado's 303 area code, twentysomethings Foreman and Motte are riding a wave of popularity due largely to their devil-may-care hit, Don't Trust Me. The lead single from their latest release, Want, the Metro Station-meets-MGMT song has a sweet hook followed by some not-so-sweet-lyrics:

Don't trust a ho
never trust a ho
won't trust a ho
won't trust me

Produced by Matt Squire (Katy Perry, Panic at the Disco, Boys Like Girls), the album is more rap than rock, featuring synth-laden aggro anthems like Punkb*tch, Holler Til You Pass Out and Starstrukk. Still Around, a down-tempo track with piano and handclaps, stands out because it's never clear if they're sincere or just joking. 3OH!3 say they're not playing: "People ask us if we’re serious about our music… but I don’t think that having fun with your music negates being serious about it."

3OH!3 are currently touring on the 2009 Warped Tour along with brokeNCYDE, Black Tide and The Devil Wears Prada.

See: myspace.com/3oh3

What did you do when you were grounded by your parents? If you're Los Angeles rap duo New Boyz, you recorded a hit song in your closet.

You're A Jerk, a thumping rap track featuring an '80s-influenced beat, lazy West Coast flows and an earworm chipmunk vocal sample, has quickly gone from MySpace to national radio. "[Our parents] got mad at us for it, but like now its like number one in a lot of stations," explain Earl Benjamin (Ben J) and Dominic Thomas (Legacy), who met each other in 9th grade. Even The New York Times has called the single "pretty much perfect."

The song has become an anthem for L.A.'s jerk dancing scene, which is described by New Boyz as "basically dancing anywhere, anytime, any place." Jerkin' (or jerk dancing) is Los Angeles' answer to Chicago's footwork and the Bay Area's turf dancing. Like their dancing, the group's sound is influenced by both the East and West Coast. Dot Com is a bounce-and-snap song with traces of hyphy while Colorz is a head-nodder inspired by the Windy City's Cool Kids.

The style has inspired a fanbase on YouTube, where a loose collective of L.A. dance crews (Action Figure$, In Living Color, U.C.L.A. Jerk Kings, LOL Kid$z and Ranger$) upload videos of their moves. Once "You're a Jerk" went viral, fans, including P. Diddy's son, Justin Combs, began posting videos of themselves jerking on the streets.

Based on the success of their hit song and dance, New Boyz scored a record deal Warner Brothers/Asylum and are now preparing to release their debut album.

See: myspace.com/newboyz

Nuyorican hip hop duo M-Team are engaged in a jihad, but they're not on a holy war. According to siblings Hamza and Suliman Perez, who founded M-Team in 2001 (the "M" stands for mujahideen), they're on a mission to rap about "the struggle of poor and oppressed people."

Born in Brooklyn to a family from Loíza, Puerto Rico, Hamza and Suliman converted to Islam after spending the tail end of the '90s as drug dealers. Hamza was recently the subject of a documentary, New Muslim Cool, which shows his transition from living single in New York City to raising a family in Pittsburgh.

Rapping under the names En Sabah Nur (Hamza) and Doctor Zhivago (Suliman), the duo has since released two independent albums, Clash of Civilizations and their latest, My Enemy's Enemy. The disc contains plenty of gritty New York hip hop that shouts out political activists, calls for solidarity between Latinos and asks questions about the American political system. M-Team say they want not only to spread the word of Islam, but they also want to entertain: "A side of hip hop that is dying out is diversity. Stuff that is fun… stuff with powerful messages."

See: myspace.com/mteam

Don't call Da' Zoo the Puerto Rican Black Eyed Peas.

Yes, Da Zoo is also three guys and a cute girl, they have a remix of Boom Boom Pow on their MySpace and plenty of sticky sweet pop hooks. But Da' Zoo say that's where the similarities end: "[P]eople compare us with them just because of the formation of the band: three boys, one girl. They are great artists, but they aren’t one of our influences."

Formed in 2006, Da' Zoo released its self-titled debut earlier this year. Unlike the Peas, the quartet comprised of Charly "Charly Zoo" Rodríguez, Freddy "Yo Fred" Lugo, Raúl "Raggi" Quezada and Elizabeth "Eli Joe" Fuentes prefer their pop served with rock and funk instead of hip hop and R&B. Excuse Me, a flirty track about "un atrevido," is packed with blips, synths and a vicious hook:

Excuse me baby soy un atrevido
solo quiero nadar en tu ombligo

But like the Black Eyed Peas, these Boricuas have a gift for making dirty talk sound sweet. The video for lead single Chitu, which features "jeringoza" (a mix of Puerto Rican slang and children's music), is both cute and pervy at the same time:

Esto esta caliente ya se puso pa' otra cosa
yo lo tengo claro que la cosa esta sabrosa
cuando tu te pegas yo siento la mariposa
y me pongo bruto como la pantera rosa

An infectious hipster remix of "Excuse Me" by Nacotheque's Marcelo Cunning is currently streaming on the Da Zoo's MySpace.

See: myspace.com/dazoomusic

Do high school band geeks ever make it in the music industry? Jeremih is about to.

Birthday Sex, a smoldering slow jam by R&B singer Jeremih (pronounced Jer-em-eye), became a surprise hit earlier this year, getting national radio play, over 60 million plays on MySpace and, most recently, a spot on iTunes' Top 100 singles. "I had no clue that it would ever get this big," admits Jeremih, who attributes the song's success to the simple fact that "it's someone's birthday every day." (It probably helped that he didn't go with the original title: "Birthday Text.)

The 21-year old has been compared to The-Dream as well as fellow Windy City native R. Kelly for both his vocal style and raunchy storylines. With lyrics like "1-2-3, I think I've got you pinned/don't tap out/fight until the end," Jeremih shows he's got Kells' knack for wrapping up borderline cheesy lines with a solid hook: "l don't need candles and cake/just need your body to make/birthday sex." A self-taught musician who has played drums, keyboards and saxophone since his days at Morgan Park High School, Jeremih is grateful for his stroke of good luck. But the self-described rapper-turned singer says there's more to him than one catchy song: "I'd hate for people to think… you're gonna hear twelve 'Birthday Sexes' on my album."

Jeremih's self-titled debut is scheduled for release at the end of this month.

See: myspace.com/jeremih

They say if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. Janelle Monáe said "No, thanks."

While growing up in Kansas City, the R&B-soul artist dreamed of becoming a Broadway star. But Monáe, who studied theater at NYC's American Musical Academy, shelved her plans after she was only offered "African-American roles." In 2004, the 22-year-old singer moved to Atlanta and began her singing career in earnest, crafting her Andre 3000-meets-Lauryn Hill style on the Southern club and college circuit. A year later, Monáe wowed OutKast's Big Boi during a Def Poetry Jam performance and parlayed it into guest spots on Big Boi's Got Purp? Vol. II compilation and OutKast's Idlewild soundtrack.

In 2007, Monáe was working on an ambitious four-part debut titled Metropolis. But a call from Diddy stopped Monáe in her tracks. He heard her music on MySpace and asked her to join Bad Boy Records. Monáe agreed, and the man who helped Notorious B.I.G. go "from ashy to classy" hailed his new artist as "possibly the most important signing of my career." A self-described sci-fi freak, Monáe dropped the first installment of Metropolis, The Chase Suite, last summer. Both retro and futuristic, the album tells the story of an android who faces death after falling in love with a human. "I love Octavia Butler and Isaac Asimov and The Twilight Zone, and Blade Runner, and of course The Matrix and Star Wars. I've always had a fascination with the supernatural. So I kind of meshed all this in my mind," explains Monáe, whose pompadour is a li.

The Grammy-nominated Monáe is currently on tour, opening for No Doubt on selected dates. The second and third installments of her Metropolis series are scheduled for release later this year but it's another gig that may help Monáe blur the lines between fact and fiction: this fall, she'll play herself in two episodes of the SyFy Channel's Stargate Universe.

See: myspace.com/janellemonae

Ask the Los Angeles-born, Culiacán-bred narcocorrido singer Larry Hernández to explain one of his tracks and he'll probably answer by singing it back to you.

When Los Tigres del Norte launched the narcorrido genre nearly 30 years ago they were careful to throw hints about the drug traffickers that inspired their ballads. The 29-year-old Hernández is far more blunt:

"Me pongo un toque de kush
y mi persona se altera
no miro monos con trinchetes
y bien traigo una loquera
ese humo tranquilizante
hasta el cerebro me pega"

I take a toke of the kush
and my mind state is altered
I'm not seeing any visions
but I feel so crazy
that calming smoke
hits my brain

- "El Baleado"

Painting too vivid a picture of narco life could be dangerous, but Hernández insists he's singing about fictional characters: "My corridos aren't made for starting beef with anyone, they are corridos that are made to entertain, so people can drink and have a good time." His nickname, "El Amigo de Todos (Everyone's Friend)," could either describe his easygoing nature or a shrewd marketing strategy in a business where entertainment and reality often collide.

On his latest album, 16 Narcocorridos, Hernández chronicles a world where the bad guys are calling the shots: there's El Querendón y Cajetoso, a womanizer without remorse, Rey Midas, a man who escapes poverty by joining the mafia, and a ruthless gang of killers known simply as El Taliban. Hernández, who takes pride in singing about "things no one else would dare sing about," says these days, he's more worried about ticket sales than anything else: "What I'm afraid is of getting a weekend where nobody shows up [to my shows]."

See: myspace.com/larryhernandez