(Muso's Guide, February 17, 2009)
Album review
Formerly the musical saviour of the western world, or something like it, Lady Sovereign must feel that she is all too fast becoming something of a footnote to urban, as she as she sees fit to alert us that she is “still in the game”, in the first minute of Jig-Raw Mixtape.
Happily, following on from her online release of ‘I Got You Dancing’ this Jig-Raw Mixtape is free to a good home, and proof positive that she is well and truly back in the game. It was produced by Jack Beats of Scratch Perverts, and contains snippets of tracks from her new album Jigsaw, which is out on 6th April.
Samples pop up like old friends throughout Jig-Raw, as Lady Sovereign puts together her own pick’n'mix (does that still exist following Woolworths’ demise?) including The Cure’s ‘Close To Me’, as she spouts, “I’ve waited hours for this/I’ve made myself so sick”, against that incredibly recognisable keyboard part, turning Robert Smith out of his grave for it. In this whistle-stop tour through the new, improved Lady Sovereign, she covers many topics of hot discussion in her own inimitable street style.
From social networking - Facebook and friend requests - to social problems, she is vociferous, spitting, “if you love me, then thank you, if you hate me, then fuck you”. And if you don’t like her? “Go on, report me/I’m English, try and deport me”. The couplets on show are skilled indeed - intelligent and modern, putting a poetic angle to the street speak she spouts so freely, “Dirty kisses/Dirty dishes in my sink/I’ll be your dirty misses”.
It’s great to get something like this ahead of the record - Jig-Raw Mixtape has whet the appetite for Jigsaw properly. On the strength of this, it’s set to be a slick slice of urban with the stamp of a woman who has seen it all before. Here’s to Lady Sover-reigning supreme.
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