The Pioneer Times

Issue date: 12/20/06 Section: Entertainment

Lady Sovereign

Since Jay-Z became president of Island/Def Jam Records, his marketing strategy has been to throw anything at the wall and see what sticks.

He knows the veteran Ghostface Killah still has a fairly large audience (larger than Method Man's woeful one anyway) and people who ignored the Wu-Tang collective in the 2000s are beginning to realize he's worth keeping their eye on. Rihanna can crank out one perfect jam each for the next few summers until she tries something artistically ill-advised. And since Jay-Z runs into clients such as The Killers and Fall Out Boy at the office a few times a week, he recognizes an alternative audience, one that he hopes to expose his personal favorite, The Roots, to.

But what should he do with his strangest acquisition: Lady Sovereign, a 20-year-old 5-foot-1-inch white girl from Britain who raps over grimy electrodance that hasn't really broken in the States, unless you count the established Missy Elliott.

So when Sovereign released her debut/singles-compilation, Vertically Challenged, last year, it predictably didn't make much of a splash So it comes as a bit of a shock that "Love Me Or Hate Me," the first single from Sov's new full-length, Public Warning, debuted at number one on MTV's Total Request Live.

Sov is more than a walking gimmick with considerable talent, if Public Warning and the Vertically Challenged manifesto "Ch-Ching" (hook: "I got fifty things to say/in a cheeky kind of way") are any indication.

For one thing, she's a female rapper who doesn't sell her body in her songs and videos, and even kind of mocks sex in a giggly, prepubescent way ("I don't have the biggest breasteses/But I write all the bestestses"). The only TRL-topper that does that is Pink, but Pink is more of the Avril Lavigne sort, who sneers at anyone who looks at her chest even though she always shows up to the Videa Music Awards half dressed and drunk. Sovereign doesn't seem to harbor any insecurities about her body; she gleefully raps about her short, pale British weirdness.

Her whole shtick has playfulness and an all-inclusiveness that has won her a novelty tag that might wear out too fast. For one thing, she could go without mentioning her height in every single song. We get it-you're short and yet a badass on the mic. Why are those mutually exclusive?

And Public Warning would be much stronger if it didn't repeat so many previously released songs; "9 to 5" is an inauspicious opener. The new songs on Public Warning are certainly deserving, particularly an awesome stretch from the party-planning "Gatheration," to the punk guitar on the title track, to the admittedly irresistible "Love Me or Hate Me." The deliciously arch "My England" mocks clueless, xenophobic Americans and points out that Sov prefers spirits to high tea and being dirty to being squeaky clean.

"Hoodie" and "9 to 5" are filler though, and "Fiddle With The Volume" and "A Little Bit of Shhh" remain stronger in their previous singles-comp context, bum-to-bum with their bonus remixes. The earlier underground hit "Random" is fun anywhere, but I'd hope that this increasingly vital artist starts from scratch on her next one and she might release the classic she's flirting with, while she's still hungry.

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