CD reviews: Flo Rida; Lady Sovereign

HIP-HOP

Flo Rida, "R.O.O.T.S." (Route of Overcoming the Struggle) (Atlantic)

The last time we heard from Flo Rida -- throaty rapper extraordinaire -- he went as "Low" as he could go. Rather than go so far down that he's out, his second CD finds Flo going round. "Right Round," actually. That's the cleverly sampled "Dead or Alive" smash Flo has snagged for his effervescent electro-hop. What's sparkling about that crib isn't the crispness of its mashup hitmakers. It's that for all of its joyful bounce, "Round" loses none of Flo's sluggish, sinister crank. It just lifts him higher.

From there, Flo (with too-plain-speaking pal Akon) takes to "Available" with the slipperiest of grooves and the babble of the single, sexy playa, only to express love for God and goodness after growing up from ghetto on the title track and beyond. The saints on the streets; it's been done before lots of times. Assists from Nelly Furtado, Ne-Yo and Wyclef Jean offer zero help. But when he's solo, there's zest to Flo's best that's undeniable.

A.D. AMOROSI, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

Lady Sovereign, "Jigsaw" (Midget/EMI)

At one point in "Guitar," a track on this, her second album, Lady Sovereign complains aloud about the duties of her office. It isn't all as fun as it seemed just yesterday. Her full-length debut album, "Public Warning," was released in 2006 on Def Jam, establishing an American platform for her pint-size pugnacity. But grime, the British hip-hop subgenre in which she traffics, never connected with a wide audience in the United States.

None of which would matter if "Jigsaw" were a creative breakthrough or a smart departure. But the album -- which, like its predecessor, was produced by Medasyn, another Londoner -- merely strikes a few new poses. Its lead single, "I Got You Dancing," finds Lady Sovereign singing a dance-club hook through the robot filters of Auto-Tune. Elsewhere she sticks to the playground-taunt simplicity of her earlier choruses, half as winningly. A coarsely clever rapper, she's barely passable as a singer.

That limitation ends up hurting her flashes of introspection. On "Jigsaw" she compares her heart to a puzzle -- it's in pieces, awaiting reassembly -- and adds a pleading confession.

In the end the artist who dropped the single "Love Me or Hate Me" does her part to make nice and ends up sounding needy. "Let's be mates," she prods in the opening track. She hits on the same thought in her closer: "Want to be my friend?"

Lady Sovereign performs May 16 at the Fine Line in Minneapolis.

NATE CHINEN, NEW YORK TIMES