At just nineteen, pint-size Londoner Lady Sovereign has all the makings of the next hip-hop superstar: a record deal signed by Jay-Z, a penchant for starting beefs (she calls Jessica Simpson "a disgrace"), a nickname ("the white midget") and a brand name addiction (Adidas). She sneaks nursery rhymes into haughty boast-raps and melds hyper, big-bottomed beats with dancehall, drum- and-bass and Atari sound effects. And her clever, barb-infested flow is already drawing comparisons to another lily-white rap sensation - Eminem.

Born Louise Harman, Lady Sov grew up in the northwest London neighborhood of Wembley. "My mom and dad were punks, with spikes and mohawks," she says. "I've seen pictures, and they're proper scary!" Early on, she was exposed to a wide array of music, from her dad's punk, ska and garage rock records to her mom's jungle and big-beat albums. At fifteen, despite her promising soccer abilities, she was kicked out of school "Teachers hated me," she says. "'They sent me out of class because I would get in laughing fits."

Between jobs filling doughnuts at a local bakery and cleaning windows, she hooked up with the garage-grime crew Heavy Like Dat, which is how she met her current producer, Medasyn. But after a while, she was itching to go it alone. Medasyn in tow, she cut a slew of solo tracks, laying her chipmunk-on-Robitussin flow over bass-heavy break beats. Her cheeky rhymes cover everything from getting drunk on Pernod and riding the Tube to suffering the injustice of not having her own room. Some demos she posted online generated enough buzz to score her a deal with a UK indie and, in early September 2004, a tour with Basement Jaxx was soon followed by an opening slot with D12.

In August, Sovereign got called for a meeting with Island Def Jam label head Jay-Z, during which Hova asked her to spit some verses. "I was so nervous, I felt like my soul was being ripped out," she says. Def Jam signed the young rhymer soon after; her Vertically Challenged EP, which includes a remix by Beastie Boy Ad-Rock, is out now. Her full-length debut, which will feature collaborations with Timbaland and Missy Elliott, will follow next spring. "When I started rhyming, people said, 'You're not going to get anywhere. Get a job,' " she says. "I was like, 'I'm going to keep doing it. I've already gone through the hardest times that I'm going to go through.'"