Rjd2/Lady Sovereign
Emo’s/Waterloo Records, Friday, March 17
Was DJ Rjd2 serious when he qualified his selection of Electric Light Orchestra’s “Turn to Stone” as delivered by “the second best band of all time?” Maybe so, but coming from someone who played ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses” next to En Vogue’s “Never Gonna Get It,” it might not matter. “I’m just playing music I like, I hope that’s cool” is apparently all you need to say to an Emo’s Annex audience to obscure a tendency for train-wreck segues. At least Rj got the chance to work Kraftwerk, the Gap Band, EPMD, and Freeway into his set, but overall any given Chuck E. Cheese’s jukebox could have replaced his wheels of steel with just as worthy a playlist. Later on at Waterloo Records, London MC Lady Sovereign failed to fare much better. As her strained voice stumbled through songs from her debut EP Vertically Challenged, her incessant nods to nursery school rhymes pointed to the reality of a teenage suburbanite having very little to say on a mic. Even her backing beats, which are often the driving draw of the grime genre, were lackluster at best. Approximating a Garbage Pail Kid with a contrived case of Tourette’s, Lady Sov’s 15 minutes of media hype are falling over themselves in a quagmire of poser facial expressions.This article appears in March 17 • 2006.