Daddy’s Girls

“Brilliant . . . yeah, you’re brilliant . . . it’s brilliant.”

Brilliant isn’t the kind of word you expect to hear from rappers, who generally are bent on trying to prove how tough they are and often seem ready to pick a fight. But it’s a favorite of Sandra Lawrence, who with her younger sister Timmy makes up the Wee Papa Girls, a London-based rap act that has been a hit in England and makes its Los Angeles concert debut Thursday at the Palace in Hollywood.

“We’re the nice posse,” says Lawrence, 23, referring to the “crew” of friends and associates she and Timmy, 19, have assembled in London.

“There are some clubs we go to in London that have all these hard crews, and it’s a bit frightening,” she says. “If we go we get stared at, ‘cause we just go there to grit our teeth and have a good time. It doesn’t have to be like that. But you have ignorant people who think it is like that.”

Not only is the Wee Papa Girls’ attitude a bit against the grain, so is their music. Though inspired by American hip-hop styles, the songs on the new album, descriptively titled “The Beat, the Rhyme, the Noise” (including a version of George Michael’s “Faith”), utilize the hyperactively pulsating foundation known in England as “house” music. Clever production touches by the team of Two Men and a Drum Machine (actually Andy Cox and David Steele of the group Fine Young Cannibals) give the music more of a real song sense than much rap pieces have.

“A lot of English rappers like to pretend they’re L. L. Cool J or Public Enemy, which is fine because a lot of people admire them,” Sandra Lawrence says. “But we’ve got another side of English rappers who want to have their own style. We’re not sure what category to put us under. We’re not pop, but we’re not that hard. We’re trying to think of a fun word to use.”

How about brilliant ?