REVIEW: LADY SOVEREIGN AT THE EL REY

Louise Harman Has Grown Out Of Her Adolescent Persona And Into Herself

By: Kelly Wiles

May 27, 2009

(05/26/09 in Los Angeles, CA) “This is what relationships do to people,” Lady Sovereign said Tuesday night from the El Rey stage before launching into a song -– yes, a song, not a rap –- called "Jigsaw," the title track off her new album. According to Sov’s lyrics, what relationships do to people is make them feel “fucked up” and “kinda lost.” According to Sov’s performance at the El Rey, what relationships also apparently do to people is transform them from a precocious braggart of a teenage MC into a genuinely confident adult performer.

Relationships and life experience may have effed-up Louise Harman’s life a bit, but they’ve definitely amped up Lady Sovereign a lot as an artist. The opening band, affected Ivy Leaguers Chester French, had a bajillion people on stage helping them with the rhymes. Not so for the diminutive Sov, whose backing band consisted of DJ Annalyze and a drummer. The show was the familiar Sov-attack -- that distinctive combination of gravelly voice and babyish face, the odd ability to make profanity and sexual posturing seem adorable. At one point, Sov wound the microphone cord around her neck in a goofy strangulation mime, and the crowd erupted into shrieks of approval.

Just like Public Warning before it, the new material from Jigsaw sounds better live...which is a good thing. Sov, like all great MCs, is more comfortable engaging with an audience than singing into a studio vacuum. “I Got You Dancin',” the new single off Jigsaw, obviously sounded twice as good with people actually dancing to it.

It’s not that Sov wasn’t talented before -- she burst onto the music scene up to her slightly too-large ears in raw talent. It’s just that a couple years back, when she was touring with material from her debut album, Public Warning, her talent seemed to overwhelm her. Though her fans never doubted her self-proclaimed stage persona as the “biggest midget in the game,” the break-down Sov suffered seemed to be evidence of the fact that Sov herself was starting to doubt it.

Her sanity restored and her own record label formed, Sov is back with her new album, Jigsaw, and it’s obvious from the lyrical content, and from the way she carries herself on stage, that Lady Sovereign has grown out of her adolescent persona and into herself. Make no mistake, she still swears, swaggers, feels herself up, and sprays beer onto the crowd mid-set, but these are no longer the antics of a precocious teenager trying for shock-value.

Maybe it was the break-down of ’07 or maybe it was the break-up of a relationship that turned her heart into a “jigsaw puzzle”…whatever the cause, the result is that this time around, Louise Harman has taken control of Lady Sovereign, not the other way around.

Lady Sovereign's new album 'Jigsaw' is out now on Island Def Jam Recordings.