Supernova

As the rap presence in TLC, the group who put the songcraft into new jill swing, Lisa Lopes could often seem like the third wheel on a bicycle. Her function was to act as the punctuation mark between the vowels, the street conscience tempering the gritty glitz of records like Fan Mail. Not that she’s at all surplus to requirements – Lopes has a likeably quirky old- school rhyming style at odds with the full frontal assaults of a Foxy Brown or Li’l Kim.

By design though, Lopes is a one trick pony, albeit a thoroughbred, so Supernova features a revolving door policy of guest vocalists whose job is to bring melody to the ball. Such a formula gives this album the feel of a party conversation disrupted – and sometimes enhanced – by cameos from the likes of Carl Thomas and Angela Hunte.

Similarly, the musical policy is open to suggestion: ‘Block Party’ traces rap back to skipping rhymes and childhood skits, ‘True Confessions’ hinges on a magnetic synth-cello figure, and all 13 tracks come in multiple flavours of soda pop, retro funk and trip-hop.

Lopes is at her best when she plays the attitude card, as in ‘I Believe In Me’, where she demands recognition for her role in TLC, or the jazzy bluebeat of ‘Jenny’. Even better are the bloody-minded crunches of ‘Rags To Riches’, and she proves more than a match for Tupac on ‘Untouchable’, yet another out-take borrowed from Afeni Shakur’s archives. “I’m Diana Ross,” she brags at one stage, “not a Supreme”. It’s quite a claim, but she’s got just enough front to pull it off.