Love Her or Hate Her

We all know the song that plays as a part of the Chocolate cellphone commercial. "Love me or hate me/It's still an obsession/Love me or hate me/That is the question/If you love me then, thank you/If you hate me then, f*ck you..." The question is do you know the voice behind the song.

Name: Louisa Harman
Alter Ego: Lady Sovereign
Fans call her: Sov or S-O-V
Age: 20
Height: 5'1 (a self-described "big midget")
Record Company: Jay-Z's Def Jam
Inspiration: Ms. Dynamite

Her music has been described as "genre bending." Think Missy Elliot's hip-hop, Avril Lavigne's attitude (They both disdain miniskirts and cleavage.), and Eminem's rapping skills. These days, it's getting harder and harder to classify artists and their songs. Many of them can't be confined to the limits of just pop or rock. Thanks to downloading, cds are a dying art. Hence, artists are crossing all genre borders in an effort to revive the endangered media. Only time will tell if this move will appeal or alienate a wider audience.

Lady Sovereign (Sov) chats about the probabilities of her success in America here. She even has her own MySpace page which boasts of 80, 000 friends according to The New York Times. Sov is the first British artist to hold the number one spot on MTV's video countdown, TRL. She is just one of the latest British acts to invade the American music scene. There are a number of breakthrough artists such as Snow Patrol, Corrine Bailey Rae, Keane, James Blunt, and KT Tunstall. Some of the most successful music acts may very well be Coldplay and the Spice Girls.

According to Wikipedia, this movement dates back to the Beatles. The Yoko factor may have put a stop to the fab four, but the British tidal wave continues to head for our shores. Do Americans have an affinity with the Brits simply because they're foreign and by default, fascinating? I'd like to think good music is good music, regardless of who makes it. I never even knew that some of my favorite artists were British, let alone allow that fact to brainwash me into liking them. The songs have voices of their own.