Lady Sovereign

Pint-sized British rapper—she calls herself the “biggest midget in the game”—Lady Sovereign was poised to do big things when Jay-Z signed her to Def Jam a few years back, but 2006’s Public Warning didn’t quite live up to the hype, or Sov’s outsized braggadocio for that matter. The album certainly wasn’t without its charms; Sov’s rapid-fire delivery and clever turns of phrase (the ones Yanks could decipher) showed a lot of promise. Her 2009 album, Jigsaw, finds the famously nasal MC singing for the first time.