Let's chat about Lady Sovereign

It's not just an incomplete familiarity with grime that makes me want to call her the female Dizzee Rascal. She's works melody into the harsh structure of the genre in a similar way, and she has a similar knack for slang; her flow has the same sort of whathafuck quality, although she's much easier to understand initially.

I can't wait for more tracks from her forthcoming LP Cheeky to leak. Of the ones that are floating around, "Sshh" is probably the best - the squeaky, barely-there half-rag-time piano figure is an incredible hook in itself, but on a more general level the song works because it demands to be listened to both lyrically ("A little bit of SHHH for me") and sonically. That piece of greatness is followed by "Chi-Ching," which has been pretty extensively blogged about. Natch, the two singles are the best. I can't find a good-quality version of "Boys and Girls," but the staccato orchestra that bleeds into the badonkadonk bass is great. It's certainly dancier/more garagey than anything Dizzee's done, in a good/maybe it'll break the states/ha! kind of way. "Sad Arse Stripper" is a rip on UK popflop Jentina, and it fucking owns her, which isn't too hard because Sov's ninety billion times the wordsmith she'll ever be.

Oh, did I mention she's an 18 year old white girl, all of 5'1'', who also has a quite good song called "Midget"? Which effectively blurs the line between Dre-ish g-funk and Dizzee-like post-apocalyptic crunk, while making lemonade out of genetic lemons?

Peep the good shit ya'll.