The soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby aimed to bridge the jazz of the Roaring Twenties with 21st century pop and hip-hop. However, the songs that explicitly mixed the two eras, like Emeli Sandé’s cover of “Crazy In Love” and separate contributions from former Black Eyed Peas in a pod Fergie and will.i.am — were the set’s weakest links.

In retrospect, Gatsby executive producer Jay-Z needn’t have recruited Interscope’s biggest names but one of its newest signees (via Cherrytree Records), Ivy Levan. The dynamic brass and beats cocktail presented on the big-voiced Arkansan’s debut EP, Introducing The Dame, produced by Lucas Banker (Junkie XL, Selena Gomez) would have been a spectacular fit for West Egg.

But this way, Levan gets to be the star of her own party. An ex-model, “The Thin White Dame” has no trouble commanding the camera’s attention, as demonstrated in the music video for first single, “Hot Damn.”

I’m enthralled with “Hot Damn,” but with Natalia Kills’ expired shtick as a cautionary tale, here’s hoping Levan and her Cherrytree cohorts don’t take this “Dame” business too far or far too seriously (besides “The Thin White Dame,” she also refers to herself as “The Ghoul Next Door”). That the four tracks on Introducing The Dame total an economic 11 minutes suggests a less-is-more strategy at work this time.

Purchase Ivy Levan – “Hot Damn” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.