She really can’t dance and she really can’t sing, but petite British rapper Lady Sovereign still delivers with her debut album Public Warning.
Hurricanes of hype have swirled around Sovereign since she was personally signed to Def Jam Recordings by the back-in-action Jay-Z, and the pint-size rhymestress has already made waves in hipster scenes both here and in Britain. With video game-like beats, a frenetic rapping style and enough attitude to warrant a slap in the face, Lady Sovereign is posed to break into the mainstream with the ridiculously enjoyable, ingeniously interesting Warning.
Standing at barely above 5 feet, with a trademark sideways ponytail and bedecked in everything Adidas – from sneakers to sweatsuits – Sovereign’s most common victims are either herself or her critics. Throughout the entire album, the S-0-V mocks not only her own image but spits barbs against her detractors, most notably in “Love Me or Hate Me,” her first stateside single. After name-dropping her love of shepherd’s pie and Heineken, Sovereign boldly proclaims, “Yeah I do have some stories/And it’s true I want the glory/Go on then, come on support me/I’m English, try and deport me.”
But that’s not even the best part of the song – that award goes to the song’s chorus, in which Sovereign smirkingly thanks her fans (“If you love me then thank you”) and lyrically punches her detractors in the face (“If you hate me then f— you”).
This like-me-or-piss-off theme continues through the other catchy, layered songs on the album, all of which sport electronica backbeats and video game-like bleeps and bloops (“Love Me or Hate Me” is even built around a Tetris-esque intro).
Sovereign routinely lets her griminess shine, especially in the song “My England,” in which she tears apart her homeland’s culture. Apparently, “London ain’t all crumpets and trumpets, it’s one big slum pit” and the British “don’t all wear bowler hats and hire servants/More like 24-hour surveillance and dog shit on the pavements.”
Some of the songs such as “Those Were the Days” have a distinct reggae feel, with a slower, looping beat and calmer vocals from Sovereign as she describes her childhood. Her tale of how she “wasn’t indoors playing with Barbies or dollies” gives some insight into her tomboy image, but on the next track, the S-O-V does her best to distance herself from Eminem, the rapper many critics have equated her with. In “Blah Blah,” she spits “People wanna classify me as an Eminem/But hear what I’m a different kinda specimen/Just because I be a white Caucasian/Doesn’t mean him and I are the same.”
And truthfully, the two couldn’t be any further apart. Though some of Sovereign’s raps are as goofy as Eminem’s – remember “My Name Is” and “Without Me”? – she leans more toward Missy Elliott than any other performer on the scene. Like Elliott, Sovereign mixes bombastic, boastful rhymes, amusingly off-the-wall subject matter and innovative beats to create one-of-a-kind hip-hop.
How fitting, then, that the S-O-V’s debut ends with a remix of “Love Me or Hate Me” featuring Elliott. Together with the other 12 songs on Public Warning, Lady Sovereign’s debut proves “the biggest midget in the game” is about to blow up – and rightfully so.
Contact reporter Roxana Hadadi at roxanadbk@gmail.com.
