The first M.I.A. song I heard was called
Galang and I had to admit, it was not love at first hear. I thought, what is she saying? What a weird voice she has! But it is quite an infectious voice with lyrics worth listening to if you can decipher her unique language that combines English, slang, and a clever morphing of words to force a rhyme. Her first CD,
Arular, was an international success and
Rolling Stone listed it as one of the best albums of 2005.
Not bad for a 29-year-old, London-born, daughter of a Tamil Tiger whose real name is
Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam. Recently I learned that one of my favorite M.I.A. songs had it's music video banned from MTV because of a brief mention of the PLO. I've been listening to this song for a year now and had never even heard the offending phrase which is, "Like PLO, I never Surrend-o."
So what about the
Black-Eyed Peas song,
Where is the Love? It has a negative lyric about the CIA & FBI, two other acronym-type organizations that people have strong feelings about. To ban a young artist's music video for a lame-o reference to a so-called terrorist organization is totally hypocritical especially when many consider the FBI and the CIA to be conducting similar terrorist activities of extreme or forced rendition-- euphemisms for kidnapping and torture.
While I love M.I.A.'s unusual vocalizations and lyrics it is perhaps the marriage of her lyrics with the production of
Diplo that makes
Arular most successful. The album is full of twitchy percussion and humming backbeats that hold it all together. The end product is that of a new, 21st-century kind of music never heard before. Even if you give M.I.A. a listen and don't like it, be aware that this album will continue to influence other artists for years to come. I think M.I.A. also represents a new kind of international fusion because she hails from Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom and there are elements of both east and west in her music.
