Although the 20-year-old British grime MC is cute as a button, signed to major label Universal, and blowing up like fireworks on the Fourth of July, Lady Sovereign is straight from the streets all the way. Growing up in North London’s Chalkhill Estate, a public housing project ridden with gangs and violence, the “vertically challenged” white girl is as ghetto as they come. But the rough environment apparently didn’t have a negative affect on her- in the past four years, she’s gone from high school dropout to cross-Atlantic hip-hop star. Armed with nothing but her sassy style, sense of humor, and lyrical wit, Lady Sovereign’s about to change the face of rap not only in terms of gender, race, and nationality but by challenging the rest to do something new and different.

Despite the regal sounding name of the place where Sovereign - then known as Louise Amanda Harman - spent her youth, Chalkhill Estate had its fair share of trouble. Among the blocks of massive apartment buildings were parks where kids congregated and confrontations occurred. "I seen people get stabbed in the wrist and the knife dragged all the way up their arm and stuff like that," Sovereign says. "I was little when I saw that stuff going on, but I was more interested in going on the swings or playing football."

The 7 -year-old Louise did have her own share of scuffles, though. "I had a little gang myself, but it was a silly gang," she says. "I got held hostage by these other kids over a chocolate bar, like. They actually had this bamboo stick, and two of these girls had me by one arm each, parading me around the estate, and they wouldn't let me go unless they got this chocolate bar. So they marched me up to where I lived, and then my dad come out and give 'em a chocolate bar and they let me go. It was funny."

Her father sold drainpipes for a living, and her mother worked at Toys "R" Us, until she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to stop working. "We used to get mounds of free toys, especially when the yo-yos were in fashion," Sovereign recalls. "I would be the girl in school who had all the top yoyos because my mom would get them from work."

Perhaps if her parents had had more money, Sovereign may have chosen a different career. "I had [soccer] trials when I was like 11 or 12 for the Arsenal Ladies team," she says. "But I was too scared to ask my parents for that couple of pounds to get the train to go down there."

After hearing MCs like Ms. Dynamite on pirate radio at the age of 15, Sovereign began spitting rhymes in her bedroom and posting her a cappella recordings on the Internet to "see what would happen." Instead of going to school, she'd stay home and practice in the mirror with a hairbrush until eventually she started getting some attention, though it wasn't all good at first. "Everyone used to sort of dis me," Sovereign says. "I used to get a lot of, 'Oh, you're white, why are you doing this?' But I don't get that no more."

A true 21st-century artist, Sovereign met most of her links via the World Wide Web, including DJ Frampster, with whom she formed the Heavy Like Oat Family and built her skills on pirate radio. Meanwhile, the educational welfare board took notice of her tendency to play hooky, especially during football season - she played for the school's team - and even bribed her to attend with 10-pound mobile phone cards. Eventually they gave up and urged her to drop out. "I think I was making the whole school record look bad, so they just wanted to get rid of me," Sovereign says. "They were like, 'You're not gonna do well in your studies' and all this business."

The board felt the 16-year-old Louise would be better off without a high school diploma, and apparently she was. "I'm not telling everyone that they shouldn't go to school or try and get dropped out," she insists. "But I believe in that whole thing of things happen for a reason."

While Sovereign's mother was used to dealing with delinquency - Sov's sister also got kicked out her father decided to do something about it. He suggested that she try acting, and after only one week in a drama class, she was (miraculously) offered the lead role in a low-budget educational film. "It sounded just like my life," Sovereign says. "It was about a girl who got kicked out of school. She was an MC and a DJ and she started getting mixed up with the wrong people and started robbing people and then she ran away from home and all that. Not that I actually went out and robbed people 'cause that's not cool. But, you know, it was similar. I wasn't really acting, to be honest."

Sovereign recorded a song for the movie's soundtrack, which included other rappers who played extras and bit parts. "I haven't heard it for years. I know there's still videotapes of the film about, but I'm scared they're gonna come up and haunt me," she says.

She may be embarrassed now, but the track got her in touch with her producer, Medasyn. He's responsible for "The Battle," which also features Frost P, Zus Rock, and fellow female MC Shystie, marking Lady Sovereign's first recording. The 2-year-old collaboration turned into a girls-against-boys showdown. "Everyone was arguing because I put down my lyrics and Shystie put down hers and then the two guys would get stressed and be like, 'Oh, it's not fair, you got more time' and all this," Sovereign recalls. "It wasn't us really battling 'cause we had no beats, so it was just more biggin' up yourself on the tracks. Halfway through recording it, we all were just really stressed and pissed off with each other anyway."

The boys took their frustration out in the lyrics. "They were planning and conniving and thinking of things to say about me and Shystie because we're girls, like," Sovereign says, laughing. "The girls won."

With her debut single, "A Little Bit Of Shhh!," and her reworking of Sunship's garage hit "Cheque One Two? titled "Ch'ching" getting airplay on Radio 1, 1 Xtra, and Channel U, Sovereign's fan base grew among the London underground and its suburbs. But it was her appearance on the remix of the Streets' "Fit But You Know It" (released on 679's grime compilation, Run the Road) that catapulted her beyond British borders. "The thing that helped me the most is probably when I did [that remix] 'cause it was a group like Kano and Donae'o," Sovereign says. "That was the first time that people saw U.K. MCs get on one track, really."

A self-proclaimed "white midget feminist," the 5-foot-one Lady Sovereign has a sharp tongue and isn't afraid to use it. She's blatantly attacked other women in her tracks (and sometimes physically), like on "Sad Ass Strippa" (a play on song title "Bad Ass Strippa"), in which she accuses pop singer Jentina of being fake: "You was born in a caravan / That don't make you ghetto / I seen more ghetto in Posh Spice's stiletto." The limited release Bitchin' EP features "The Broom," about the time Sovereign had to defend herself against a drunk friend by smacking her with a broom, and "Tango," about a chick with a frightening fake tan. On "Ch'ching" she makes fun of "female MCs that don't have a clue," and on "9 to 5," she imagines her nightmare of becoming the kind of "pink lipstick ... dipstick" who would pose for FHM in a bikini.

And she doesn't have to know. Lady Sovereign has forged her own path, and she's already exceeded her expectations. "I have my own knowledge. I don't really believe what they teach in school, anyway," she says. "I think it's a bunch of shit."

Instead, Sovereign focuses on her music and having fun. Some things have changed in the last three years, but a lot hasn't. Her recurring stomach illness, for which she often must go to the hospital, doesn't deter her from eating loads of McDonald's. She reads the trashy magazine Heat, which catches stars in awkward moments like having unshaved armpits, though Sovereign admits she's sometimes guilty of the very same offense. She watches the British soap opera EastEnders, and her hobbies include producing music at home, surfing the Internet, playing football, making people laugh, and running up large phone bills.

Her favorite clothing brand is Adidas (pronounced "Addy-das"), and she likes to hang out at home rather than go out. "There's only so much you can do in a club before you get told off," she explains. "So I prefer to just stay at home and walk around and get drunk and have a laugh. Piss off the neighbors."

Sovereign loves a good debate. "People get annoyed with me," she says. "Especially when I'm drunk because I just talk and talk and talk and talk and I just get into these weird, weird descriptions of things and I won't let anyone else get a word in and I just feel great about it after. It's funny."

And Sovereign will always be her mother's daughter. "She'll call me 'Sov' sometimes," she says, laughing. "But I don't know, she prefers to call me by her pet names, which are embarrassing."

Another change is that she doesn't live in Chalkhill Estate anymore because it doesn't exist, having been demolished and rebuilt three years ago. "It's horrible," Sovereign laments. "When the photographers want to do really personal photo shoots, like where I grew up and all that, I just say, 'Look I can't do it there. It's not the same anymore.'"

Now she lives in a cleaner, more upscale area of London, partly because she was curious to see what it's like, but also to get away. "No one can find me because it's quite a posh area and you've got people with a little bit of money, so they're gonna look at me wrongly, but I love it," she says. "I just feel great 'cause I live here. They always stare at me like, 'You shouldn't be around here,' and I'm like heh heh heh. I run this area, man. Seriously, man, all these slobs around here, I'll give them some dirty looks, mate."

Just like her song, things have always been a little random for Lady Sovereign. During the interview, numbers on the dial pad were accidentally pressed, making beeping sounds, to which she responded, “Random!” And when shopping in New York for the first time in July 2005, she randomly purchased a Chuckie doll mask and scared her manager with it. “I just wanted to buy a monkey outfit so when I go home, I could just answer the door to pizza men, and just be like, heh heh," she explains. "But I got the Chuckie mask now."

Probably the most random of all is the chain of events that resulted from her poor education. "It's true things do happen for a reason," Sovereign says. "That's why I kind of don't think about things, just let things happen, and it's worked best that way. I've not forced myself to do anything." She lets out a sigh. "I love doing what I do, but I didn't think it would get to this 'cause I never really thought about the future, d'you know what I mean? It's like when people ask me where am I gonna see myself in five years time, I'm like, 'I don't know.'"

Delivered with rhythmic dexterity and speed, Sovereign's lyrics alone are a force to be reckoned with, and her girlish growl has an urban dancehall flavor, like a cross between Sri Lankan singer M.I.A. and grime poster boy Dizzee Rascal. Over banging hooks, she spits rhymes like "Gimme just a minute and I'll be in your versinity (sic) / My words hurt you just like losing virginity" or "Ooh, I never go / Hungry due to the beats I eat." The way Sovereign forms phrases combined with her thick accent can often make her lyrics hard to decipher, but she has no sympathy for the unfortunate listeners who miss her meaning. "Deal with it, yeah," she says, laughing. "Get used to it, all right."

When she's not twisting the English language to shoot down her opponents, Sovereign battles false perceptions. On "My England," which attempts to dispel the stereotype that all British people are biscuits-and-tea-consuming fuddy duddies, she says, "We ain't all posh like the Queen / We ain't all squeaky clean / Now do the Tony Blair / Throw your hands in the air, now everywhere." Sovereign explains the line using her best stuffy prime-minister voice: "When [Blair] makes these speeches, he moves his hands around all the time like an idiot."

Sovereign also fights the point of view that she's like Eminem, reasoning that "One, I'm not American / Two, I'm not a man / Three, I come into it with a different kind of plan." And when she sings, "I don't have 50 rings / But I got 50 things to say / In a cheeky kind of way," Sovereign addresses the problem she has with American hip-hop in general, saying all U.S. rappers talk about is material wealth. "I love it, but I think it's a bit repetitive," she says. "I think it's peaked now, where it's time for us to come in and invade. With U.K. hip-hop, it's a breath of fresh air. We're not afraid to say anything."

Most recently, Sovereign has started a campaign (savethehoodie.com) against the impending ban of hooded sweatshirts in London, where many people assume anyone wearing one is a hoodlum. Her new single "Hoodie," an Andre 3000-ish club anthem produced by Basement Jaxx, pays tribute to dress discrimination: "The bouncer was approaching me 'cause I was dressed really inappropriately / No hoods, no hats, no this, no that / Fling on an Adidas hoodie and just boogie woogie with me." The video for the song features a mob of kids decked out in hoods chasing a woman and her daughter down the street - not to beat them up, but to return the mom's purse because she left it in a shop. Sovereign wears hoodies every day and feels very passionately about the subject, as she does about everything. "I've been invited to Downing Street by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown," she says, laughing. "I'm gonna take the petition while I'm there and just say, 'Look here, you bastards, you ain't banning no hoodie! Are you sick?'"

Lady Sovereign's outspoken nature has gotten her attention from American hip-hop's heavy hitters. After hearing about her when she played the Knitting Factory in summer 2005, Jay-Z arranged a meeting to discuss producing some tracks with her and signing her to Def Jam. "It was scary," she says. "I kind of got on with it the best I could. I was nervous [and] I kind of got tongue-tied a bit. I got a bit quiet at times. But it was good, though. He asked me to do some lyrics - a few pre-writtens and a freestyle - so I did that, and yeah, he had this cute little grin on his face. He seemed pleased."

Her full-length, Public Warning, had been scheduled for October 2005 release in the U.K., but was pushed back pending the way things turn out with Jay-Z and the new tracks done by American producers. Due out in spring 2006, the album also will feature rerecorded versions of singles she's already released in Great Britain and production by Basement Jaxx, Jacknife Lee (U2), DJ Wonder (Dizzee Rascal), Menta, and her main production partner, Medasyn.

Until then, Sovereign's first stateside release, Vertically Challenged (Chocolate Industries), consists of an EP that includes "Random," "Fiddle With the Volume," "The Battle," and a remix of "A Little Bit of Shhh!" by Adrock as well as a DVD containing an interview with Sovereign, a few music videos, and live show snippets. Of the Adrock contribution, Sov says, "My mom's well happy about that. She loves the Beastie Boys - she got me into [them] years and years ago. So for Adrock to do that, that was wicked." According to Chocolate owner Seven, she'll also appear on Green Lantern's new mix tape with Pharrell Williams and Jay-Z himself.

Despite all her success, Lady Sovereign hasn't let fame go to her head. In person, she's friendly and energetic, a young woman who's experienced a lot in her 20 years but has the fresh outlook of someone just beginning. And she only recently stopped caring what people think. "I used to get really upset about it when I read that people were saying this and that about me and being horrible," she says. "I turn a blind eye toward that now. I sort of giggle at it because the things that people say just make me laugh."