free music friday: lady sovereign

Has Lady Sov learnt her lesson? The pint-sized rapper from Wembley made quite a splash when she first arrived in 2005, aged 19, with the Vertically Challenged EP, but the wait for her debut album was protracted, with several delays, and sucked out much of the momentum behind her. Despite a half million-selling hit single (’Love Me Or Hate Me’) and high profile supporters like Jay-Z, the album Public Warning mustered only fairly weak sales – not a disaster by any means, but not nearly as many as was predicted. This time around, Louise Harman, who turns 23 next week, is doing things her own way. Second album Jigsaw will hit the shops on April 9th through her own Midget Records imprint, facilitated by a global deal with EMI, and the typically unbashful Lady describes it as “the next chapter”. “It’s a massive leap forward for mankind,” she adds confidently.

Apparently “just to let you know I’m alive!”, a brand new Lady Sov track, ‘I Got You Dancing!’, is up for grabs, gratis. “You ain’t never heard another girl who could do it like this,” she boasts during the singsong breaks in her rapping, but when the use of AutoTune is so blatant you have to wonder whether what lies beneath it really ‘does it’ at all. Lyrically, too, she’s neutered in comparison with her funny, feisty older material. It’s not bad per se – it’s still got elements of greatness – but as a taster for an album that’s allegedly going to revolutionise our existence it’s alarmingly conventional overall. Judge for yourselves.

FREE MP3: Lady Sovereign, ‘I Got You Dancing‘

Expect a tour in February.

Written by: Alan Pedder

Tags: lady sovereign

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 3:50 am and is filed under All A/V, free music friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.