wordplay: Orangepeelmoses.com

image: Janette Beckman

M.I.A. is a Third World champion.  The daughter of an actual revolutionary—her father Arul was a wanted rebel in Sri Lanka (pear-shaped island near India)—M.I.A. has a lot to say.  Growing up in perpetual danger of merciless extermination at the hands of your own government can have that effect on you.  Not all of her rhymes are completely intelligible, and sometimes they’re so catchy that the subversive parts go unnoticed, but most of them warrant repeat listening.  MTV staunchly disagrees.  Although M.I.A’s kaleidoscopic, mash-up fashion sense has nabbed its fair share of magazine spreads and would seem a perfect fit for a channel that should benefit from catering to eye-catching artists, programming execs wouldn’t touch her first submission with a ten-foot pole unless a lyric about the P.L.O. was axed.  Censorship doesn’t interest the fearless emcee, though, and her gig itinerary isn’t suffering.

“I have to be true; I can't take certain things away. I do have a political background.  Why would I deny that?”

            M.I.A., birth handled Maya Arulpragasam (Maya Arul for short), wasn’t born into a war zone, but she may has well have been.  Dragged back to her family’s native Sri Lanka when she was still in disposable underpants, her adolescence transpired amidst bomb-demolished school buildings and random police interrogations.  Her guerrilla militant, Liberation Tigers-founding pop was introduced as an uncle when he sporadically shimmied in the bedroom window to visit.  Precautionary measures like this were all too common.  The patriarch-deprived clan eventually fled to nearby India and finally London, where they were granted asylum as refugees.  Armed with only a handful of English words including “apple,” “mango,” “elephant” and “Michael Jackson,” an 11 year-old M.I.A. struggled academically until her vocabulary expanded.  Unabashedly political hip hop such as Public Enemy and N.W.A. obviously made a lasting impression on the future word player when it was blasted by nearby flat occupants.  M.I.A. had unknowingly stumbled across her destined M.O.—creative expression. 

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design facilitated her first forays into form.  Emerging years later with a cut and paste aesthetic that perfectly synergized her war torn childhood and her graffiti-influenced teens, M.I.A. skyrocketed to art collector prominence, selling out her entire debut exhibition and wooing Jude Law in the process.  A book deal followed.  Elastica front woman Justine Frischmann commissioned both an album cover and a tour doc.  Warm-up act Peaches held M.I.A.’s hand as she twiddled sequencer knobs for the first time, coaching her as she coaxed aural pleasure from the blinking machine.  Arul’s irresistible fusion of Baile funk (Brazilian electro rap), Bollywood, dancehall, grime, hip hop and various other world music would go on to become an irrefutable anomaly, a genre-hopping mélange capable of effortlessly seducing two key demographics—DJs and critics.  The blogosphere had a field day as well.  Piracy Funds Terrorism, compiled by then beau Diplo, is arguably the most brilliantly titled mix tape in history.  A Mercury Prize nod was on the horizon.  MTV may not have bitten, but auto giant Honda licensed the Sri Lanka nursery rhyme-biting “Galang” for a Civic commercial and the Clash-sampling “Paper Planes,” from sophomore outing Kala, scores the trailer for Judd Apatow’s upcoming stoner/action flick Pineapple Express.  M.I.A. has proven that even overtly political music can be used to hype movies and cars…as long as it’s set to a floor-filling beat.           

“Nobody wants to be dancing to political songs. I wanted to see if I could write songs about something important and make it sound like nothing. And it kind of worked.”

Timbaland, who taints Kala closer “Come Around” with his ego-stroking flow, was originally slated to streamline the sonic travelogue for mass consumption, but M.I.A.’s visa was unexpectedly cock-blocked by U.S. Immigration.  Coincidence?  The “poetic terrorist” doesn’t think so, but, considering the quality of Tim’s sole, soulless contribution, it was probably for the best.  UK-based DJ Switch ended up being her primary Kala co-pilot in a game of “cultural hopscotch” through Australia, India, Jamaica, Tokyo and Trinidad.  Navigating uncharted musical territory amidst frequent language barriers was both challenging and risky, but the resulting dividends were absolutely worthwhile.    

World music never sounded so futuristic.                                                            

May 17^th @ The Fillmore