...music by a rising female artist (7)
I believe the answer is:
raphael
'female artist' is the definition.
'raphael' can be an answer for 'artist' (Italian painter, 1483-1520). I am not certain of the 'female' bit.
'music by a rising' is the wordplay.
'music' becomes 'rap' (musical genre).
'by a' becomes 'leah' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'rising' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (in a down clue, letters go up).
'leah' in reverse letter order is 'hael'.
'rap'+'hael'='RAPHAEL'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for raphael that I've seen before include "Archangel - artist" , "Fifteenth to sixteenth century Italian painter" , "Angel; Italian painter" , "A Renaissance artist" , "Sistine Madonna artist" .)