« The Joggers | Main | Tullycraft »
Lady Sovereign
Sometimes the ups and downs of the SXSW band listing can leave you reeling -- other times, the switcheroo brings about unmitigated joy. I'm happy to report on a situation that reflects the latter, thank goodness. When the first version of the actual schedule of showcases was released last week, it was with great pleasure that I noted Lady Sovereign -- the minuscule, exceptionally sharp teen queen (she's 19) MC of the UK grime scene -- had magically reappeared in the queue after somehow falling off the late January list.
Lady Sov (whatever you do, best not use her given appellation, Louise Harmon; it's unclear if it's all right to use her known nickname 'The White Midget,' though -- maybe?) is blessed with a tongue-trippingly conversational and appealing flow, accentuated with wry self-deprecation and a preoccupation with the annoying mundanity of teenage life. Which is not to say that Lady Sov is toothless -- her shredding of UK "urban teen sensation" Jentina's train wreck of a song "Bad Ass Strippa," in the wickedly mean-spirited, but hardly cruel diss track "Sad Ass Strippa," just enhanced Lady Sov's reputation for, as the English say, taking the piss when the situation warrants such a thing. And though she didn't grow up in the East London immigrant slums that's home to a large part of the grime scene, she's anything like a pre-fab teen star and her neighborhood in Wembley, North London, wasn't exactly the most posh district either. Lady Sov got her start passing one minute long snippets of her rhymes over the Internet, won freestyle battles over chat programs, and was an underground sensation (working with producer Medasyn and long-time DJ Frampster, laying down non-sequitur-laced rhymes over fat dubby dancehall beats that collided with electro video-game theme glitch -- the trademark sound of grime) for several years before signing to Island/Def Jam in 2005.
Now, this would be a good time to please note that I am avoiding comparing Lady Sovereign to fellow countryman and white-boy MC Mike Skinner of The Streets or Detroit's own Eminem. Such comparisons seem strangely pointless; this is a girl who drinks a lot of Stella Artois (settle down, indie kids -- it's like the PBR of the UK, really), is obsessed with Adidas products, and wears her house keys 'round her neck -- presumably so when she bros down she won't lose them, or maybe it's just her way of mocking the bling factor of hip hop. At any rate, she's got more in common with Missy Elliot's lyrical content and near-neutral yet strikingly sassy sexuality (and it's heartening to hear that Lady Sov will be working with Miss E and Timbaland on her new album) than the young men she's glommed with merely because of her race. And if you must go there, please give a nod to the snotty insouciance of the Beastie Boys instead, rather than with the acidic vitriol of Eminem.
One hopes that Lady Sov's upcoming full-length album won't, as her 2005 EP Vertically Challenged did, omit some of her better songs to save us Yanks the trouble of puzzling out 'foreign' cultural references -- like "Tango" -- an indictment of chavvy girls who use too much fake tan (surely not only an affliction of girls in the UK, but seems to be a common lyrical complaint across the pond) that namechecks UK cell phone network Orange, the Orange Tango Man, and "The Vicar of Dibley." (Got that? Google can help, really.) Or "Hoodie," a track written in response to the calls to ban the "anti-social" activity of wearing a hooded sweatshirt -- as if anyone doing so were automatically a thug. Anyway, part of Lady Sov's charm, for me at least, is her insistence on saying what she thinks, no apologies, while being clever and charming and, well, straight up cheeky about it, cultural differences be damned.
Lady Sovereign - A Little Bit of Shhh (Smallstars Remix feat. Adrock)
Lady Sovereign - Random (Menta Remix feat. Riko)
Lady Sovereign - Hoodie (Alternative Medasyn Radio Mix)
Lady Sovereign - 9 to 5
Lady Sovereign's official website. Buy Vertically Challenged at Amazon or the iTunes Music Store.
Shadows tags:ladysovereign.
Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll at 02.20.06 at 3:01 AM
Comments
Hey everyone mtvU is having fans submit questions to ask Lady Sovereign during her interview on Backstage Pass. Here is the link: http://www.mtvu.com/music/backstage_pass/questions.jhtml
Posted by: Kennedy at 03.07.06 at 1:44 PM
Comments are now closed for this entry.
