Lady Sovereign, “Love Me or Hate Me”
ED KING REPORTS: Jeez, haven’t we pumped up the jams already? Is life actually so short that I’m already faced with reliving the early ’90s? I caught a recent Letterman rerun featuring a performance by Lady Sovereign. I’d heard about her a bit, knew she was one of those “dirty” British rappers who appeal to liberal, educated white kids. This was the first time I’d seen her act. About 2:45 into Lady Sovereign’s lip-synched performance of “Love Me or Hate Me” on Late Night with David Letterman, she steps forward and lifts her ski goggles up to show off a radiant baby doll face. It was already clear from her pressed jeans, Frankie Says-like t-shirt, and luxurious mane of brown hair that the only thing rough on this girl was her voice, but this “Honestly, I’m just playing a skank!” move sealed the deal. Yeah, I know, it’s catchy. So was the tune Nero fiddled.
We gotta disagree on this one, Eddy. We’re gonna do the gentlemanly thing and get the Lady’s back. Coupla things: Yeah, she SUCKED on Letterman, but hip-hop is RECORDING art form, not a performing art form. Common rockist mistake. Used to make it ourselves until, after going to one too many interchangeably bad hip-hop shows, we finally decided that, barring The Roots, rap is NEVER good live and stopped bothering and instead just turned it up REALLY FUCKIN’ loud in the car, as it was meant to be heard. That is how we learned to stop worrying and love the video. Oh, and she wasn’t lip-synching.–Ed.