Lady Sovereign is sitting sculpture still in Soho’s fashionable Profile bar while make-artist Nikki paints her eyelids coal black. ‘You know what? Do what you want,’ Sov tells Nikki. Sov’s best mate and hairstylist, Sean Nolan, who’s been especially requested by Sov for the cover shoot, remarks that in the past she’s been a bit of a madam with hair and makeup artists. Today she’s sweetness itself and as we chat before the shoot, she comes across as measured, funny and candid. Not at all the trouble-maker I’m expecting, although as she warms up she admits to stealing an ex girlfriend’s car a few years ago after a painful break-up that she sings about on her second album, Jigsaw. (She assures me she eventually returned it.) Then there’s the night she spent in a police cell after a fight with a transvestite in a gay club in Brisbane, Australia.

I can’t picture the five foot one waif wreaking much havoc although she does admit to spitting on one of the security guards. ‘I was being proper manhandled but they made like I was the wildest animal going,’ she explains.We get a taste of her cheeky side when she has a hissy fit about wearing a tribal jump-suit we’ve selected. She harrumphs off upstairs for a calming ciggie, muttering under her breath, ‘No wonder people won’t work with me’. When she returns she apologises and jokes about dry-humping the Tatty Devine accessories displayed on a table. Has she deliberately cultivated her bad girl image? ‘No, I’m really not. Unless I’ve got about six Sambuccas inside me. I’ve kind of cleaned up my act a little but I used to be a bit boisterous. I still am a bit but I’m not as wreckless as I used to be. It’s time to focus on myself and be a bit more sensible rather than make money, sit on my arse, spend it and start again. I’ve made that mistake a few times.’