Lady Sovereign shows a softer side

"What am I doing?" she says, her voice quivering 10 minutes earlier as she enters Whatever Tattoo, trailing her manager, who also wants to get some ink. The 23-year-old British rapper is worried she's going to bleed too much since she's been drinking vodka and Red Bull since 11:30 that morning. Then she toughens up, clearing her throat: "All right, let's do this."

It's a surprising scene only because Lady Sovereign has been so brash and swaggering, both off and onstage, since she debuted in 2005 with "Vertically Challenged." Yes, she's 5-foot-1, but Lady Sov, a precursor to M.I.A. and Santigold, has held her own in a genre dominated by men. It takes a mighty confident person to brag about being "the biggest midget in the game."

On this rainy afternoon, Sovereign is showing a softer side, which just happens to dovetail with the personal nature of her new album, "Jigsaw." She'd probably beg to differ, but her third release is something of a gamble for Sovereign, who performs at the Paradise Rock Club tonight. For one thing, it's more of a dance record than a straight-ahead hip-hop album.

She's still rapping, but not quite as much or as lightning-fast as on her hits "Love Me or Hate Me" and "Ch Ching." Instead, she's recently discovered her singing voice, which she realizes is a small but promising instrument.

At a South by Southwest festival show in March, she seemed concerned with the audience's reaction to her new direction. Introducing the first single, "So Human," she essentially apologized for its unabashed dance beats and heart-on-sleeve lyrics.

"The thing is, I just know how people's minds work," Sovereign says in the lobby of the Tribeca Grand Hotel, where she was set to perform before a packed house around midnight. "I've been gone for a little while, and now I'm back and I'm singing. It might come as a shock to some people. I always like to explain myself because I've always been a bit self-conscious."

She had no desire to churn out songs that sounded the same. "I knew this album was going to be different. I don't like to duplicate anything. And I sang, right?" she says, hardly believing it herself. "That kind of surprised me a bit, but I like it. I'm not a great singer, but now that I can sing, I can do a lot more with my music."

There is a noticeable change in her writing as well, which has become more confessional than cocksure. Sovereign has had her heart broken since her last album, 2006's "Public Warning," and while she's not ready to divulge the details, her anguish is palpable on the title track's chorus: "My heart is like a jigsaw puzzle/ Pick it up and fix it for me/ Can you figure it out?"

"Jigsaw" finds Sovereign at a commercial crossroads. It features two of her most irresistible singles - the club anthems "Let's Be Mates" and "I Got You Dancing" (whose infectious, Auto-Tuned chorus gives Kanye West stiff competition) - but Sovereign is more or less going it alone this time around, releasing the album on her own Midget Records. She doesn't have a publicity machine behind her since she left Def Jam - and doesn't seem especially pleased with her experience on the major label.

"I don't have an A&R [person], so no one tells me what to do with my music, which is great," she says. "People have tried, but I never go through with it. Now I can call the shots. I am the priority, whereas before I was maybe 12th down on the list at Def Jam."

Maybe she could be more successful, she surmises, if she had followed other people's advice, like collaborating with the Beastie Boys or hit-making producer Pharrell Williams. But she maintains she can't force chemistry and would be a flop at something premeditated.

She's long been accustomed to doing things her way. Sovereign was born in London with the less-than-menacing name of Louise Harman, but everyone calls her Sov or Sovereign, including her mother. (She took her stage name from her preferred brand of British cigarettes.) Sovereign started writing at age 14, but looks back on those days with some scorn: "It was just me bragging about myself, very hyped lyrics," she says. "At that age I was just a street rat." But that didn't stop her from filling notebooks with lyrics about her life - until one day her older sister ripped them up in a rage (over a hair clip, Sovereign seems to remember).

Initially Sovereign was lumped into London's garage and grime music scenes but never felt like she belonged. She ended up finding a broader fan base in the United States, where she washed up as a novelty: a pint-size, streetwise female rapper in baggy clothes with a side ponytail and a clever, lyrical flow that rivaled Eminem's.

"I don't know why I'm more popular here. I could never put my finger on it, and sometimes it really does bug me a bit," she says, acknowledging the United States doesn't really have an equivalent to her. "I know I'm talented, I write my own stuff, and I work hard, yet I still get perceived as someone who doesn't deserve [expletive]. People do literally love me or hate me."

James Reed can be reached at jreed@globe.com.