Lady Sovereign - Love Me Or Hate Me (DefJam)
3/5
By: Charlie Potter
As far as I can work out, Lady Sovereign, the little scamp, somehow got signed to DefJam, DefJam being first and foremost an American label, who released her album and this single in the States back in October. If stories are to be believed, the song has done very well, as has the album, so now she's returned to her native England, her pockets lined with gold, our girl out in America home to roost with the very same single which showed her fortune in the first place - only the single in question has many references to being an English girl in America.
If you hadn't guessed and you haven't seen the single cover, the image that Sov is aiming for is one of a nasty little scally. Her head looks round like a ball because her pony tail is so ridiculously tight it looks as if it is about to tear her scalp from her head, and she sings about how much she doesn't care about stuff to the point that it in fact seems that all she does care about is Shepherds Pie, and not caring about stuff.
She raps in the proper East London style which is one of the most impressive things about this single. Most Americans however, from everything I've ever witnessed (that being the first series of 'Chancers'), hate that stuff - they don't get it at all, but somehow she manages to take enough from the two styles to make it work. The 'British' version of this single has a Missy Elliot remix on it which unfortunately is the sort of remix which sounds like Missy has never actually heard the song and someone has just paid her to lay some of her mediocre rapping over the right tempo. The rap is then grafted into the song and no one knows any better, that is unless Missy says something to the contrary of what Lady Sovereign has in the original. She doesn't.
The original version itself is much better, even though it's largely about being a British girl out in America, missing her Shepherd's Pie. The general gist of the song sees Sov admitting that she can't dance or sing, she hasn't got any money and that she's just, y'know, doing her thing. On the new version however you've got Missy Elliot barging in singing about how 'it's the seven digit numbers that's the cash in my bank', and how grea she is for having loads of jewellery. Hmm.
For what it is, the lyrics herein are amusing, and the bass sound is nothing short of brilliant. But it's difficult to shake the feeling that this is a nasty song that people only like in an ironic way.
Artists in this article: Lady Sovereign
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