Malina Moye is a singer, songwriter, and left-handed guitarist who is capable of switching between contemporary R&B ballads and blues-infused hard rockers in convincing fashion. Making her debut in 2004 with the single "Alone," Moye first stepped out as an R&B diva, but the 2009 album Diamonds & Guitars found her putting a new emphasis on her guitar work. Moye stepped forward as a full-fledged guitar heroine on 2014's Rock & Roll Baby (which featured a guest spot by Bootsy Collins on the tune "K-Yotic"), and her 2018 EP Bad as I Wanna Be was a bracing fusion of hard rock and R&B.

Born into music, Malina Moye's father is bassist George Moye, and her mother sang backup for Tina Turner. Moye was handed her first guitar at the age of six. In 2004, she co-founded the WCE label as an outlet for her recordings, with filmmaker Marc Fusco. That year, WCE dropped Moye's debut single, "Alone," which placed a small dent in the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. It wasn't until 2009 that she released her debut album, Diamonds & Guitars. The LP was a stylistically diverse set of songs, featuring appearances from rappers Layzie Bone and Smif-N-Wessun's Steele. All the while, critical and public recognition of her work on guitar -- held upside-down, Jimi Hendrix style -- continued to spread. In 2012, Moye was one of the featured guitarists in the Experience Hendrix tour beside the likes of Eric Gales, Eric Johnson, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Additionally, she performed in a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tribute to Chuck Berry. Her second album, Rock & Roll Baby, was released in 2014. In 2018, Moye brought out Bad as I Wanna Be, an EP that mixed rock and R&B influences; it rose to number 19 on the Heatseekers chart, which follows artists on the rise. ~ Andy Kellman