M.I.A is infectious, in the true sense of
the word. Her debut Arular is like that book
you can’t put down, a mish mash of everything
unconventional and ugly, with lashings of composition
irresistibly original, it’s completely
weird and works brilliantly. Not since Missy
Elliot has hip hop had a woman that honestly
doesn’t give a fuck and done her thing
creatively, however bizarre, regardless of critics,
producers or the likes. M.I.A, or Maya Arulpragasam,
is defiantly similar, relishing the diversity
and the wacky elements of her music whilst having
the balls to back up her decisions and the conviction
to believe in them.
When you grew up dodging bombs and fleeing
civil war in Sri Lanka it’s not difficult
to understand how the music industry may seem
fickle to M.I.A. Maya grew up in a world that
few of us could contemplate, in the years of
civil war between the Tamil minority and the
Buddhist Sinhalese in India, Maya’s father
was a Tamil revolutionary, eventually forcing
the family to flee the country. Her mother and
siblings relocated to a particularly racist
South London where Maya was labelled ‘The
Thing’ as her surname was too long and
difficult to pronounce. She somewhat stumbled
into music when Elastica front woman Justine
Frichmann handed down a 303 which then became
the basis for Arular, an indescribable combination
of everything that for convenience has been
labelled hip hop.
Whilst she has definitely made waves in the
UK, it was America that really took to her music
and propelled her to the spotlight,
‘As soon as I went over to America I
totally got a nod from every person I admired,
I got a phone call from every producer I respect
and every artist that I respect and loads of
people came to my shows. In America I think
they get the whole picture and they just go
“okay”. In America they’re
really obsessed with being a winner, if you
watch TV there, whether you’re watching
the god channel or advertising or Dr Phil or
Oprah or their programs, films, anything it
all leads to one sentiment that is ‘AND
YOU’RE A WINNER’ and ‘GOD
WE’RE SO PROUD’ and they all clap
and stuff. “Get this whitening paste and
you can be a winner too!” and “do
these stomach crunches and you can be a winner
too’”. I think when they heard me
come up, that whole picture made it happen for
me, oh look she’s lived through this and
lived through that, then she did that and went
to art school and now she’s here and they
embraced that. In England they are more like
“are you an mc?” and if you’re
an mc you’re judged on how much you can
diss the next person and it doesn’t go
beyond that. It really is about “yeah
yeah yeah, what what what” and I wasn’t
trying to do that, I was more “c’mon
now, I’m not going to act like I’m
18” because it just doesn’t go nowhere.’
So whilst the UK heralded 2005 as the year
of the female mc, M.I.A shied away from the
spotlight and it has proved more than beneficial,
establishing herself as a solo artist as opposed
to a phase. ‘The year I came out you had
Shystie, you had me, you had Lady Sauve, you
had Estelle, you had a couple more girls and
every magazine was like ‘female grime
mc’s, female grime mc’s’ and
everybody did loads of articles on it. I kinda
went “hmm, I’d like to be there
and stuff but I’ve got this whole bunch
of drama that goes on with me over here and
it’s really important for me to sort that
out before I start repping my neighbourhood”.
Then they were like “Whoa, what are you
trying to say, like who the fuck are you?”
and then it’s was like well I’m
fucked cos I know a little too much about life
and I can’t deny it. I can’t be
localised, I can’t be part of a scene
or a thing like that because it just doesn’t
work for me and I’ve already gone past
it and I already know too much. So I think at
that time I just kind of stuck to it and a lot
of people were like ‘she ain’t real
then, she ain’t comin from the hood’
and they just forgot about me a little bit,
which was probably the best thing that happened
to me because I could just quietly get on with
it. Lady Sauve is about the only one that is
still actually around and it’s not like
England’s embraced her and made her into
this amazing thing anyways, she’s having
a hard time with it and I think she’s
cool. I think generally it’s really hard
being a female mc in Britain if your not coffee
table.’
And with M.I.A it will never be coffee table,
atypical is Maya’s staple when it comes
to music, getting thrills from the smallest
quirks in production and thinking outside the
square. ‘I think about it a lot and I
think there’s enough in hip hop now that
you can do really creative things with it and
there’s this little group called Numb
coming out of Oakland and I heard this track
I Got Grapes and it’s so nice, it felt
really nice and I heard it and I liked it and
I got hooked up with the producer. I basically
took him all the things and found some things
that I was into, I wanted to use a hip hop producer
but I wanted him to step out of what he’s
doing and what he knows and come and do something
with me in my world. It was really cool, he
just did it and it was the first step into working
with hip hop people and it’s not Timbaland
or people like that cos I feel like that’s
too obvious for me to go there. To make like
a chequebook album, getting all the best producers.
I feel that is open to me but I like the fact
that I went to an unknown producer in Oakland
and he tried to make me this weird thing that
I liked. The act of it just made me really happy
and the fact that he was really willing to step
in and just explore a little bit, that’s
all I can do to it. I feel that’s my only
job, is step in and if I’m going to use
hip hop producers is to go there and go ‘look,
this is how they make music in Mongolia, fancy
going there for a bit and trying something’
and for them to go ‘alright’ and
just try and roll with the punches.’
Rarely do the generous journalistic claims
about originality and change in music come into
fruition but with M.I.A you can’t help
but to believe the hype. Her album and her attitude
is honest and admirable and she is touring as
part of the Big Day Out.
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