Pop Music Review : Cheery Wee Papa Girls Hampered by Sound System

It was a meager crowd that decided to brave the cold Wednesday night to see the Wee Papa Girls--sisters Sandra and Timmy Lawrence, trying to make their mark as female British rappers. While they’re off to a good start with energetic, appealing numbers such as “The Beat, the Rhyme, the Noise” to their credit, American rappers such as Salt-N-Pepa and Roxanne Shante wouldn’t have felt much need to worry if they’d caught the Girls’ act at the Palace.

For one thing, the young women were hampered by a shoddy sound system. For most of the brief set, the 100 or so people clustered near the edge of the stage just stared at the pair with bemused expressions as if trying to decipher what they were saying. The Girls’ saving grace Wednesday was their indefatigable cheerleader-type charm.

Sensing early on that they weren’t really winning over the house with their music, the Girls implored the crowd to loosen up and give them a chance, even resorting to a little blatant flattery: “There’s some good-looking guys here tonight . . . but the kind of guys we like like to party. “

Opening act Red Flag didn’t fare much better in the sound department, but these British techno-pop brothers--Chris and Mark Reynolds--did offer an interesting metallic, futuristic rendering of the Supremes’ “Where Did Our Love Go?”