Public Warning

Editors’ Notes She may not be the first artist from the UK's fertile grime scene to get a big record deal in the U.S., but the talented, self-described "white midget" <is the first artist from outside the States to ever be signed to Def Jam — on the basis of a single freestyle delivered in front of Nas and Jay-Z, no less. And while she may have infamously failed to get anything going in the studio with hit-makers the Neptunes while working on this two-years-in-the-making-album, she can clearly craft catchy and minimalist bleepy-bloopy, electro-hop songs all on her own. The drawback with the wait of course is that fans will know half the tracks already, from when they were released as singles or on the 5-foot-1, young rapper's website. But even the topical, banging, Chingy-biting "Random" sounds no less relevant or awesome a few years later. She knows how to rock a beat like Missy Elliott, though for all her ego-driven angst and self-deprecating banter, a better comparison might be Eminem. A few tunes fall flat, but Lady Sovereign's debut is a nimble, slang-and-stunner overall; she's arguably (easily) the biggest hip-hop talent to emerge from the UK since Mike "Streets" Skinner.