Public Warning : Lady Sovereign : Review : Rolling Stone

"The biggest midget in the game" isn't a boast one soon forgets -- especially when it's punctuated seconds later by a nasty "burp in your face." Meet Lady Sovereign, whose frenetic flow and Eminem-like sass have already won the diminutive twenty-year-old a dedicated following in her native U.K. Despite the sponsorship of label boss Jay-Z, Sov doesn't have much in common with most stateside rappers. Her voice -- which alternates between a toddler's whine and an elderly croak -- ensures that her strongest songs have a gloss of novelty, from the playfully rowdy "Random" ("Everybody get random!" she urges, before funning on American accents) to the fits-and-starts wordplay of "A Little Bit of Shhh." Despite some uneven striving-for-maturity moments (the fluffy nostalgia of "Those Were the Days"), Sov's at her best when she doesn't take herself too seriously, as on the wickedly self-deprecatory "Love Me or Hate Me."