Revealed this week as one of the first artists we’ll be seeing at Parklife in 2009, Lady Sovereign has been hard at work doing press in the UK of late with her brand new album Jigsaw now on shelves.

Having shot to stardom when she was signed to Def Jam by Jay-Z in 2005, Sovereign has been speaking about her unceremonious departure from the label and subsequent meltdown late last year.

“I lost the plot a few times,” she told UK newspaper The Guardian. “I was cutting myself and stupid things like that. I was tired. I felt like it was just push, push, push. I didn’t have a chance to record any new stuff, it was the same old songs.”

Although she’s now in a better place, having parted ways with Def Jam to release her new album on her own label Midget Records, she explains she went through a very rough patch for a while, becoming depressed and even over-dosing on anti-depressants at one point.

“It was the lowest I’ve ever been in my life,” she recalls, although it seems to have strengthened her resolve to keep going. “I’m determined and excited,” she said. “This is never going to stop; I’ll keep making music, I’ll keep doing my own thing. I’m not a one-trick pony.”

Check out the YouTube of one of Lady Sovereign’s more infamous meltdown’s below; onstage at Studio B in New York City: