The Lady Is a Tigra.

You never forget your first sip of champagne. For The Lady Tigra, that hazy memory is forever linked to Los Angeles. "It was the first time I got drunk," she says of that day, almost 20 years ago. Back then, Tigra was 18, and she and her best friend, Bunny D, made up the Miami bass duo L'Trimm. Their Top 40 single, an ode to subwoofers—"Cars That Go Boom"— brought them to Hollywood to shoot the video.

"We were staying at the Sunset Marquis and I was like, 'Bunny, we should celebrate because we're in L.A. Let's have some champagne. Let’s have one glass.'" She smiles, invitingly, and right away you can see why Bunny caved. Several flutes later, two tipsy girls were traipsing down the Boulevard, making trouble.

But even a champagne buzz fades and so, too, did L'Trimm. Two decades later, Tigra has returned to L.A., this time to call it home, and with even more reason to pop a few corks—her solo debut, Please Mr. BoomBox (High Score Records), will be released this spring. "Neither one of us ever thought we'd make music again," says Tigra, although she still talks to Bunny, now a nurse living in Indiana. "It's weird doing this without her." Maybe, but it's allowed her to make a CD that is uniquely Tigra—a layered mix influenced by time spent in Miami, New York and Southern California, with a dash of her Haitian-French roots, for a kicky update of her old-school sound.

While recording, she kept her game nimble by opening a show for Kanye West and Gnarls Barkley, and continues to play locally while preparing for a tour and getting used to a new city. Tigra seems to be fitting in just fine, except for one thing: She won't complain about the traffic. "Actually, I kinda like it," she says. To Tigra, the car is a destination unto itself. "Sometimes I just need to drive around and listen to my album over and over again." And off she goes in her black-on-black '95 El Dorado.