Music Issue: Fierce South Philly rapper Lee Mazin chases her dreams.

“I want everyone to know that we do run the world,” says Lee Mazin, consciously echoing Beyoncé’s mantra. “I stand up for independent women in all aspects of life: mothers without husbands, girls who grew up without fathers.”

Fierce words, that’s what you can expect from the 22-year-old South Philly singer-rapper whom Meek Mill calls the “First Lady” of his Dreamchasers label. You can also expect lots of mixtapes and lots of singles popping with sing-song-y hip-hop and strong melodic hooks. Her still-untitled debut full-length is on its way. “I definitely want it all,” she says — though she very nearly went a different route.

“I actually went to school for psychology,” says Mazin (aka Taliyah Smith), who went to Academy Park High School and Delaware State University. “I mean, I was good with words, and I sang, but it wasn’t as if I was looking for this. I never really imagined myself with a career in music.”

That started to change in 2009, when friends filmed her fooling around freestyling and posted the video on YouTube. She liked the attention it brought and got serious. Soon she was promoting her freestyles (like “No Flex Zone” and “Believe Me”) through social networks and CDs handed out to anyone who’d listen. “Everything is self-promo,” she says. The more known she got, the more known she wanted to be, so she hit open-mic jams and recorded at BatCave Studios on North Third Street. The frenetic booty-shaker “Back It Up” became part of Power99’s rotation, courtesy DJ Diamond Kuts.

“I write stories that girls of my age could relate to, about struggle, getting through, being victorious and doing it independently. I can walk in your shoes,” says Mazin, pointing to personal songs like “Thot” and “Walk In.”

“What are my struggles? I grew up throughout Philly and Delaware County. My mom put aside what she wanted to do for herself to raise her kids right,” she says. “I didn’t go without much because my mom worked hard, but there was struggle. I saw her struggles and survivals. There was the hardship of getting into school without money since financial aid didn’t help much. Overcoming the violence and drugs in my area — I stayed away from it — and the stuff we go through as young females.”

Coming up in the rap game, she and Meek Mill used to bump into each other at shows. “He saw my hustle. For someone to be starting out as he was — focused — and to see someone push as hard as he, Meek liked that in me.”

Mill liked it so much that, in 2012, when they both were in Atlanta for separate shows, he told Mazin that he’d have a surprise for her back in Philly. The thrill came when Mill, the headliner at 2012’s Powerhouse at Wells Fargo Center, brought Mazin onstage. That’s when he called her the “First Lady of Dreamchasers” and made her that label’s priority push.

Mazin’s affiliation with Mill has given her a brand-name platform and motivation to keep going “as we come from similar predicaments, and he made it out.” Mill’s current jail time for probation violations may have slowed his roll (his sophomore album is delayed), but not Mazin’s.

“It hasn’t affected me,” she says. “I am my own entity, and my team and I are pushing forward. Look, I want people to understand that I come from some of the same places they do and that I am making it possible, independently, to be who I am. A lot of women, especially in hip-hop, get caught up in chasing after the men or depending on the label or the guys to get it done. I’m here to say that, in a male-dominated profession, I am doing it for myself.”