Lil Mama, Voice of the Young People

"Whatchoo know 'bout me?" demands the 18-year-old MC born Niatia Kirkland on Lip Gloss, the American hit that kicks off her debut album. We know several things: that she can spit out pop-rap rhymes with the insouciance of someone twice her age; as a self-proclaimed role model, she keeps her music "clean"; and she's judicious in her choice of collaborators. Her verses on a remix of Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend add icy coolness to that shrill tune, while a duet with R&B pin-up Chris Brown, Shawty Get Loose, is uplifting to a fault. Such is the catchiness of this generally lovable record that it's easy to miss the bleak thrust of her lyrics, which deal with crack-fiend mothers, moral slackness and, on the melancholy College, her experience of being taken to visit her father at "college" - her mother's euphemism for "prison". The start of something big? Quite possibly.