Lady Sovereign — Public Warning

Like Lily Allen, this year's other bratty, blog-storming Brit, Lady Sovereign likes to talk shit. But while Allen wages relatively simplistic gender warfare, Sov brings a more class-conscious tomboy power to the fight. Both confrontational stances work — Allen's because it's at odds with her clean, ear-to-ear pop sound, and Sov's because it conforms to hip-hop's conventions while also providing refreshingly different reference points. Just as Stateside rappers name-check Iceberg Slim and attack fake gangstas, Lady Sovereign drops Oliver Twist nods and makes fun of fake tans. Sov's gender only adds depth to this defiant stance. Her on-record burps, for example, defy notions of both bourgeois and feminine propriety. True, Eminem thoroughly deflated the human-whoopee-cushion bit on his last record, but Lady Sovereign gets away with it because she's the cutest rapper this side of Raven Symone circa-1993. Plus, she knows how to craft a quality pop song, be it sentimental hip-pop, guitar-fuelled punk-rap or quirky, catchy dance music.

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