Receive Weekly Email and Text Message Updates:
Sign up for latest info on concerts, dining, promotions and more!
Go!

Most Popular

Reader's Picks

Top Recommendations

A short list of Dallas's most popular hot spots.
user content provided by: LikeMe.net & Dallas Observer

National Features >

  • City Pages

    Michele Bachmann, Unmuzzled

    You don't need to read Sarah Palin's book to hear the ravings of a mad woman.

    By Matt Snyders

  • Miami New Times

    Pimp Daddy

    The rise and fall of a chubby sex-cult leader.

    By Natalie O'Neill

  • Riverfront Times

    Babe 'n' Arms

    Tom was a hot-tempered cross-dresser with a garage full of guns--and then he became Rachel.

    By Nicholas Phillips

Lady Sovereign

Jigsaw (Midget/EMI)

Share

  • rss

By Ben Westhoff

Published on May 12, 2009 at 6:26pm

Lady Sovereign was the Asher Roth of 2006, the subject of a tremendous marketing blitz preceding the U.S. release of her debut, Public Warning. Like the suburban stylings of Roth, there was some question whether the public was ready for a white, British grime rapper's fairly exotic flow. Turns out they weren't; unlike Roth's debut, Sovereign's didn't catch on, and so, on her follow-up, Jigsaw, she goes a ways toward sanitizing her often-caustic sound.

On the first half of the album she uses fairly accessible beats, such as on the plaintive "So Human," which samples The Cure's "Close to Me." Melodic, crooned hooks help her convey vulnerability on the title track, in which she sings, "My life is like a jigsaw puzzle/ Pick it up and fix it for me." But later in the work, she returns to the electro/dancehall and cheeky taunts she's known for, such as on "Student Union," in which she brags about dropping out of high school and complains about how lame college kids are: "Saw these chicks doing this flex/Wearing tees but not wearing bras." This train doesn't completely derail, however, until the second-to-last track, "Food Play," which, unfortunately, is about having sex while eating cheeseburgers.