M.I.A.’s rich cultural and political background is further profiled in this great article!
Excerpt:
When she debuted in 2005 with Arular, critics couldn’t get over the package: the brown doe eyes, the cover model looks, the bracingly danceable music–not to mention the lyrics about war, terror and poverty. Her name–Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, better known as the rapper M.I.A.–was everywhere. Her second album, Kala, has stirred a small backlash among critics who admit they don’t know what she is trying to say. That’s hardly her fault. Kala shows she is one of the most important musical artists of the decade.
Children–brown-skinned children from Liberia, India, Jamaica and Baltimore, the post-hip-hop nationals of what M.I.A. calls World Town–climb all over the grooves of Kala. Their noise becomes part of the record’s texture: they shriek in delight, laugh and dance; they kick rhymes; they cock guns. Not unlike the fourth season of HBO’s hit The Wire, Kala explores poverty, violence and globalization through the eyes of children left behind. M.I.A.’s London refugee crew sling sugar water, bootleg CDs and color TVs to stay ahead of Border and Immigration, send remittances back to Asia or Africa and survive another day while their parents pray they become accountants. “Why has everyone got hustle on their mind?” she asks.
Read the whole article here: “News from Nowhere” by Jeff Chang.
