from congo to colombo

Just because the Knitting Factory was sold out and packed solid with music geeks and indie hipsters on Saturday night does not mean that M.I.A. is going to be the superstar she deserves to be. But even if she only sells a couple thousand copies of her really pretty excellent debut album Arular, she's already the most interesting thing to happen to pop music in the last year.

This is not just because of the songs -- of which there is not a weak one -- or even just because of her back story (British citizen from a family of Sri Lankan refugees whose father, at least according to some accounts, fought with the Tamil Tigers). It is also not just because her mix-disc with American DJ Diplo, Piracy Funds Terrorism Vol. 1 -- which blended Arular mash-ups with everything from Cutty Ranks to the Bangles to Brazilian baile funk -- was my favorite album of '04. It's because M.I.A. is something new: like Dizzee Rascal before her (and, say, Eminem before him), she's a voice we haven't heard before, both literally and figuratively.

Her status as an outsider, an immigrant and refugee, gives her license (which she freely indulges) to claim sympathy and kinship with every kind of underclass, and with every struggle. This has gotten her in some hot water, and will probably get her in more: lyrics like "like PLO, I don't surrend-o" aren't going to go down well everywhere, and her implicit leaning toward the Tigers, while maybe understandable given her personal history, puts her at least tangentially in association with a group accused of killing civilians and forcibly recruiting child soldiers. She's a graphic designer too, and her imagery is unaplogetically militaristic; at the Knitting Factory, an overhead screen showed a continuous loop of animated tanks, planes, bombs and soldiers, interspersed with bursts of flowers and peace signs.

The contradictions carry over to the music, which is joyously martial, with beats that hit like mortars backing up ebullient la-la-la playground chants. Further complicating things, she is only occasionally explicit in her politics ("You can watch TV or watch the media/ President Bush talking take-over"), bouncing back and forth between international intrigue, amorous rivalries and plain old trash talking in the best traditions of hip-hop and Jamaican dancehall, the two musical forms she draws from most directly. One minute she's observing a Third World sneaker factory, the next she's sneering at Kate Moss, and then she's off to beat down some hussy who "fucked my man and wrecked my home." In between, she gets taken hostage in the tropics, where she says "palm trees in the wet smells amazing."

Her ideas run in several directions at once, and sometimes collide or run right over each other. What's consistent is her easy conviction that wherever she happens to be in any given song, musically or geographically, she belongs there, at least as much as she belongs anywhere. It's a confidence born of dispossession, a pre-emptive claim to global citizenship before anyone can take it away. To the extent that M.I.A. is offering herself as a voice of the Global South, her message is pretty simple: listen up. ("London, quieten down, I need to make a sound/ New York, quieten down, I need to make a sound") Her flirtation with terrorism as a metaphor will set Bill O'Reilly's veins to bulging if he ever gets wind of her, but you'd have to be even stupider than him to think music this fiercely liberated -- this sexual, assertive and female, if not "feminine" -- has any bread to break with al Qaeda. M.I.A. isn't threatening to blow up anything up except easy assumptions about the world, including all those parts of it you don't know enough about. Her music isn't angry, it's gleeful. And it's about not asking permission, of the government or the mullahs or the licensed airwaves (she's a big fan of pirate radio). It's a demand for equal time, not just self-important platitudes about freedom and liberty in some rich man's inaugural address.

And like both Dizzee and Eminem -- who also filtered hip-hop through their own prisms of class, race and culture -- her invocation of the music feels fluid and unforced. It's one more sign of hip-hop's resonance that, like rock 'n' roll 40 years ago, it is echoing back to America from all points of the compass. Whether America is listening is another matter entirely.

Comments

[gypsyfrocksbedlam]

And as an addendum or appendix or whatever, here's a review I wrote of "Piracy Funds Terrorism" for a certain weekly paper last fall that fell afoul of my deteriorating relationship with the publisher and hence never ran (although they did pay me the 30 bucks for it, thanks guys). So anyway, appearing for the first time ever, the review Metro Pulse didn't want you to read:

M.I.A./Diplo
Piracy Funds Terrorism, Vol. 1

This relentlessly entertaining and sometimes jaw-dropping mix is a near-hour of nonstop hip-hop, dancehall and Brazilian funk spotlighting the you’ve-never-heard-anything-like-her British/Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. over grooves appropriated by Philadelphia DJ Diplo from an inspired trove of sources (Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin’,” Lil Jon’s squiggly synth notes from Ciara’s “Goodies,” Prince’s “When Doves Cry”).
If you’re not familiar with M.I.A.’s U.K. singles (“Galang,” “Sunshawas,” “Amazon”), these reconstitutions keep her cross-cultural cockiness intact. And Diplo’s cranked electro effects – hallways full of doors slamming all at once – are parade beats for a militant Carnaval. The disc is agile like an air raid. It floats like a battleship.
Even the interpolated tracks by other artists – Clipse’s “Definition of a Roller,” Cutty Ranks’ insane “Limb by Limb,” the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” (really!) – feel in this context like an outgrowth of M.I.A.’s fearless globalism. The effortless blend of bhangra beats, Dirty South crunk, London slang, and politics of all kinds (sexual, racial, international) is more than just novel – it’s exhilarating. M.I.A.’s first proper album won’t be out until sometime this winter, but, like the future, she’s already here.

[BC]

I would refer you to section 11b of our agreement. Thank you for your consideration.

[lobbygow]

Hey gypsy, do you want to come out to BKLN Thursday and catch the Jug Band Festival?

It looks like washtub bass, jew's harp, and washboards could be the next "two turntables and a microphone."

I'm still waiting for the inevitable preservationist jazz/hip hop hybrid. I think they would go well together given the subject matter of most of the songs and the thumping tempos. I can hear the perfect arrangement of "In The Jailhouse Now," in my head.

[gypsyfrocksbedlam]

I'd love to, but I think I've used up my going-out quota for the month (next month lady J and I are going to see Keren Ann at Joe's Pub -- you guys should come, it's a CD release show for her new disc).

And BC, I don't think "deteriorating relationship" is either a slur or any kind of secret, just a statement of well documented facts. But don't worry, I won't have occasion to revisit them. I just wanted to post that thing somewhere.

[BC]

Don't worry. I'm not going to sue. But I called out for complimenting you, so fair's fair.

[CAFKIA]

Call me when she, or any of the hip hoppers, decide to sing or otherwise make music.

[gypsyfrocksbedlam]

... Whether America is listening is another matter entirely....

[Great Granpa]

Call me when she, or any of the hip hoppers, decide to sing or otherwise make music.

I'm still getting over that so-called Rythm & Blues nonsense. There hasn't been anything worth listening to since Stephen Foster died.

[Great Great Granpa]

There hasn't been anything worth listening to since Stephen Foster died.

You call that music?

Tin Pan Alley my foot, more like Tin Ear Alley. "Barbara Allen," now that's music and a great story to boot.

[Great Great Great Granpa]

"Barbara Allen," now that's music and a great story to boot.

The only boot you'll see is the one I'm throwing at your head if you're singin' that crap. Everything has been goin' to hell in a handbasket since they invented the pianoforte. Harpsichord, now THAT'S music.

[Great Great Great Grandma]

And you wonder why y'all never get any.

Anyone know if Piracy Funds Terrorism Vol 1 is hosted anywhere for downloading? TIA.

[gypsyfrocksbedlam]

It was up at boomselection for a while, but it looks like it's gone now. If you can't find it, send me an email (jmayshark@nyc.rr.com) -- I can get you a copy.