Lily Allen: More than a girlie girl – Los Angeles Times – calendarlive.com
Lily Allen: More than a girlie girl
Lily Allen is the kind of rising star everybody knows, but not too well. Music snobs have been alternately fawning over and dismissing the 21-year-old singer since last summer, when she hit No. 1 on the British pop charts with the lilting kiss-off ballad “Smile” after posting it on her MySpace page… “As a teenager, I got into hip-hop and jungle and ragga,” she said. “I desperately wanted to be a dancehall queen. I was so jealous of M.I.A. when she came out [with her dancehall-influenced sound]. That was what I wanted to do! But I couldn’t, being a middle-class white chick. So it was about finding what was acceptable, but still staying true to what I believed in. With ska, and bands like the Specials, there were always white people attached to it.”