Tipster Sparky left a link to an interview with MIA on the News Tab. The part that seemed most interesting had to do with the role producer Diplo has played in her music. According to M.I.A., the influence of Diplo has been seriously overplayed by the media, for reasons that might have to do with gender and race:
M.I.A.: Yesterday I read like five magazines in the airplane– it was a nine hour flight– and three out of five magazines said “Diplo: the mastermind behind M.I.A.’s politics!” And I was wondering, does that stem from [Pitchfork]? Because I find it really bonkers.
Pitchfork: Well, it’s hard to say where it originated. We certainly have made reference to Diplo playing a part on your records, but it seems like everyone plays that up.
M.I.A.: If you read the credits, he sent me a loop for “Bucky Done Gun”, and I made a song in London, and it became “Bucky Done Gun”. But that was the only song he was actually involved in on Arular. So the whole time I’ve had immigration problems and not been able to get in the country, what I am or what I do has got a life of its own, and is becoming less and less to do with me. And I just find it a bit upsetting and kind of insulting that I can’t have any ideas on my own because I’m a female or that people from undeveloped countries can’t have ideas of their own unless it’s backed up by someone who’s blond-haired and blue-eyed. After the first time it’s cool, the second time it’s cool, but after like the third, fourth, fifth time, maybe it’s an issue that we need to talk about, maybe that’s something important, you know. (link)
Go, Maya. As she goes forward, she puts more emphasis on the gender question, and less on the whether “people from underdeveloped countries” can have “ideas of their own”:
M.I.A.: […] And if I can’t get credit because I’m a female and everything’s going to boil down to ‘everything has to be shot out of a man,’ then I much rather it go to Switch, who did actually give me the time and actually listened to what I was saying and actually came to India and Trinidad and all these places, and actually spent time on me and actually cared about what I was doing, and actually cared about the situation I was in with not being able to get into the country and not having access to things or, you know, being able to direct this album in a totally innovative direction. (link)
Unfortunately, perhaps, most of the interviewer’s questions are about the various men she collaborated with on her new album ‘Kala’, whether it’s Diplo, Switch, or Timbaland. (Well, at least there’s nothing in here about cleavage…)
I think she’s making a valid point about how women musicians are often represented in the alternative/indie rock world. I can remember people saying similar things about Bjork’s relationships with some of her male producers, several years ago — not really giving Bjork credit for her own brilliant and idiosyncratic musical vision. Bjork, like M.I.A., is clearly a force of nature…
On the other hand, M.I.A. did date Diplo at some point (I don’t know exactly when), so does her desire to deemphasize his influence have to do with that? I’m just asking…
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Through a DJ friend, I managed to get my hands on an advance copy of M.I.A.’s new album, Kala. It’s already been released in the U.K.; the U.S. release date is August 27. This is a brief review (we reserve the right to do a more detailed take later).
Some of the best tracks are already in circulation: “Bird Flu” and “Boys.” I don’t care for “Jimmy,” which heavily samples an old Bollywood film song (from Disco Dancer), though I gather that other folks like it. To me it just sounds a bit clumsy. (Check out a sample from “Jimmy” at Ultrabrown)
My favorite of the other tracks on the record has to be the collaboration with Timbaland, “Come Around.” Other cool tracks are “20 Dollar” and “World Town.” All three have hypnotic beats, and a slightly more laid back lyrical delivery from M.I.A.
Overall, people who liked the manic energy and off-kilter beats of Arular will probably be into Kala. The sound is slightly different — it’s certainly no retread of her earlier work. The beats here are generally less electronic and more noisy and organic; the maximalist palette seems well-suited to M.I.A.’s over the top personality.
Admittedly, some of the louder tracks on Kala do grate a bit on the ears, but then I suppose that’s what an IPod playlist is for, hm?
She looks like MGR on the album cover, is she a DMK activist now ?
Excellent observation louiecypher. I didn’t know who MGR was so I looked it up:
My favorite part of the interview:
Did she really come from a mud hut? That’s what I want to know. I’m sure everybody else will think I’m being a literalist here, but … did she ever live for an extended period of time in a mud hut?
you mean AIADMK ?
Doh…losing tracking of lemurian politics. She should do a collaboration with Jayalalitha, but she will have to give up top billing. They both have diva attitudes, but the big J can crush her (literally & figuratively).
She looks like MGR on the album cover, is she a DMK activist now ?
I haven’t fully processed all the lyrics, though from what I’ve been able to decipher, she actually doesn’t talk much about South Asian politics on this album — I can’t think of any song about Sri Lanka or the Tamil Tigers.
The emphasis is much more on Africa and Afro-Caribbean sounds and political questions. So the resemblance to MGR might just be an accident. And if you go to the interview I linked to, she’s going for a rather different look!
Ennis: I can believe it. I think before the conflict when it was SL that was the Asian tiger, I would tend to believe it was hyperbole as most Jaffna Tamils lived in more permanent structures. But a woman her age would only have known conflict & economic deprivation. Given who her father is I am sure their property would have been confiscated
So, I find MIA’s music catchy, but I have a serious problem with her exploitation of LTTE icons and symbols as well as glamorization of violent imagery (I think, in the Bucky Done Gun video, for example), without actually stating her political positions for fear of jeopardizing her acceptability. Of course, I don’t fully know all the details and subtleties of her songs or whatever, but are there good analyses of her politics, especially in relation to her music, that explore this question?
I’ve heard the album and I haven’t decided whether I like it or not. It’s definitely very different from Arular, and grating as the review points out.
I’m curious to see how many men take her up on her request for a husband. If I was ready for a wife, I’d definitely contact her.
my family’s ancestral home in Nallur, Jaffna has been squatted on, confiscated, bombed to smithereens, rebuilt, and then promptly squatted again. Our land was summarily appropriate by the government. You don’t have to be related to an LTTE-affiliate in order to get f8cked over. property-wise, i mean.
Amardeep, I haven’t heard the full album (just 5 tracks), but I think my ears are bleeding. This is really depressing — I enjoyed Arular, but this album makes me want to stick a pencil in my ear.
The Sri Lankan tamil friends I know have had family friends who decided to stay back live in their ancestral homes to prevent squatting and confiscation. Seems to have worked for them so far, but they still talk with great longing of the wonderful times they had there, and how they have been unable to go back to their childhood roosts.
muralimannered, what is the general belief about how this conflict will evolve over the coming years? Doesn’t look like either side is willing to make the pragmatic decisions necessary for peace (I assume that the only realistic solution is some sort of autonomous province for the Tamils).
I’d be curious too. Also, I’m pretty clueless about Sri Lankan history on the whole. Can anyone suggest a good balanced book/resource explaining the history of the current conflict?
rahul,
Most big-time (and small-time) music critics have chosen to remain agnostic on the issue. However, if I was an art student trying to “make it” in that particular track, I just might choose the most provocative imagery I could find–as she said, she’s managed to get a significant amount of people’s attention in a fairly short time–also a function of the indie-music press, who blow new acts so full of congratulatory hot air that the some people in the media world can hardly ignore it–but she should know by know that ethnic mystique will not satisfy the minds of curious fans like ourselves.
I used to think Aki Nawaz (FunDaMental) was easily one of the best 5 producers i’d ever heard, until his most recent album promotion turned into a self-flagellating, haha-i’m-a-political-jihadi posture-filled, uneducated rant against the entire non-Muslim world.
MIA definitely hasn’t reached that point, but I do think it’s time she laid it all out on the line.
I personally don’t like the Hollertronix-style mashup character of some of her newer material, but
Yes.
Anybody who gives second life to dogawful Jimmy should be made to listen to … M.I.A.
Hombre, she’ll have a ticket waiting for you in Miami, but all she wants is a green card.
Pretty bleak. Most of my elderly relatives living in Colombo are doing their best to stay with their kids in various overseas destinations. One of my aunts was trying to sell properties in Colombo that were owned by her late husband and the buyers, a local school governed by a council, are being pressured.
The council president, a muslim, was kidnapped and then ransomed for about $400K SL Rupees (still a considerable amount in dollars), after which he promptly went to ground in Malaysia. People are pointing fingers in every direction, but the likely culprits are the Karuna faction–which many people tend to ignore but are snapping up kids at a rate that the Tigers would be hard pressed to match and scrambling for funds to keep the Tigers in a two-front battle.
The three-headed triumvirate that basically controls all the vital ministerial portfolios is the brothers Rajapakse–and while he may make some noise about being willing to find a political solution, it is the military solution that he, and his supporters, wish for. He is pulling in logistical and military help from Pakistan, China, the US, Ukraine–really wherever he can find a receptive audience.
My cousin attended a talk he gave in Houston (his other brother lives there), and he made concerted effort to link the LTTE with AQ–fairly ludicrous given the LTTE’s treatment of north-eastern Muslims, but part of his sales pitch to drum up military support. The fall of Thoppigala certainly has given him a boost, along with his “bold action” in telling migrant Tamil laborers to vacate Colomobo and it is all these factors that contribute to the general feeling of hopelessnes (at least within my own family)
what’s her connection w/Baltimore club?
Thanks, muralimannered.
Vivo: She has worked with the Baltimore Club Producer, Blaqstarr. You can read more about it by going to this Village Voice Article
I’m glad to hear she has moved away from some of the hard core support of terrorism (at least on this album). A lot of my family live in Belfast, Northern Ireland and its only now getting a little better. All of my Irish relations are Protestants and I’m Catholic (well a lapsed Catholic). I actually believe that the English should get out of Ireland altogether but i wouldn’t want to see any of my family get hurt just to achieve that goal.
I did a quick Wiki search and this war has claimed the lives of 68,000 people since 1983. Thats so sad.
publications might overplay the involvement of Diplo in her music but she certainly didn’t grab Bmore club from nowhere–Hollertronix was biggin’ up that sound well before any other hipster-affiliated collective could appropriate it for their own purposes.
d. geezer,
care to elaborate? At worst, her mumblings entail an insipid, half-hearted glorification of violence–unless you can produce something to the contrary.
By stating that the English should get out of N. Ireland all together, are you not mirroring the legimate aspirations of Tamils who remember pre-war life under Singhalese-majority administration?
“It’s already been released in the U.K”
not out in the uk till the 20/8.
I’m a half-Sri-Lankan (Sinhala) British woman, also from London and I can’t stand the way M.I.A. has to get so much grief for her political leanings or constantly put down for being a fake . I mean, what’s fake about her exactly ? If I can understand where she’s coming from I can’t understand why so many take issue with her. Tamils are/were abused in Sri-Lankan; currently some 1 million Tamils are displaced in North Sri-Lanka; racism is alive and kicking towards Tamils in Sri-Lanka who have bought into the Aryan supremacy myth. I am in total opposition to Rajapaksa’s military solution to the terrorist problem and forsee more resentment and division to come. Dropping bombs at random in North and East territories to eliminate the LTTE isn’t my idea of a solution.
I love M.I.A and never believed she was glorifying violence but rather forcing us (esp Sinhalese) to soul-search and wonder why the LTTE existed in the first place. Her issues are global and not confined to the Sri-Lankan situation. Quite frankly, I love to see a woman of South Asian origin speaking her mind and working with the hottest producers around. Fuck Diplo getting all the credit – he ought to be seen as the lucky one in being able to work with such a spirited individual.
Muralimannered: Hope you are having a great day today. Hmmm well I support her right to the ‘freedom of expression’. We wouldn’t even be having this discussion if she was not making music.
I should be saying ‘British’ rather than English. The British Army is actually getting ready to leave N.Ireland right now. I was really referring to the Army rather than ordinary people.
I was trying to illustrate with my point about my mixed family that violence is counter-productive. I have my beliefs but I would only support non-violent political action in this case. Avoiding violence gives people from different backgrounds a chance to talk and come to a peaceful resolution.
It does seem perhaps that the Tamils were given preferential treatment under British rule (1796-1948). I believe this tactic is often referred to ‘divide and rule’ or ‘divide and conquer’. These types of conflicts have occurred in many countries that were ruled by European powers. Rwanda would be an extreme example of this.
From reading Halah’s comment it looks like now the situation has been reversed somewhat and now Tamils are experiencing a great deal of discrimination. Hopefully at some point the two sides will be able to come to a peaceful resolution of this awful situation.
I thought the new album isnt nearly as catchy as the first album, but maybe I need a few more listens. I didnt care for bird flu or boys, but i thought Paper Planes was awesome.
I really like come around too except I think Timbaland totally ruins it. ah well.
Timbaland ruins that song with a teepee reference. Kala’s an amazing album. I think the production is worlds better than Arular whereas the lyrical content lags behind. Nonetheless I think it’s probably a better album and the haters are just hating to hate. Paper Planes is brilliant, best track on the album. 20 dollar’s brilliant with that pixies where is my mind hook and fuzzy synths at the beginning that sound like blue monday. bamboo banger and world town are also awesome.
I agree that the ‘tepee’ bit by Timbaland was crap. I mean, c’mon wtf??? But ‘Come Around’ is a heavy tune!!
Rahul,
I’m not sure what you mean by “balanced”–in the context of a civil war, “balanced” is a fraught term. That said, I think one of the best books that I’ve read is Sumantra Bose’s States, Nations, Sovereignty: Sri Lanka, India and the Tamil Eelam Movement (New Delhi: Sage, 1994). If you have access to the British journal Race and Class, there’s a good overview in an article written by its editor, A. Sivanandan, titled “Sri Lanka: racism and the politics of underdevelopment” (Vol. 26, no. 1, 1984). You can also check out Sivanandan’s historical novel, When Memory Dies, which traces the steady development of the conflict from colonial times to the present through the lives of three generations of a Sri Lankan family. It isn’t necessarily a masterpiece in literary terms, but it is a moving, and informative, novel nonetheless.
All three of these texts are quite unequivocal in their support for the Tamil struggle for self-determination and autonomy, but they are also critical of aspects of the LTTE’s politics and tactics. This is what I would consider “balanced” in this context.
As Halah says (#23), Tamils are an oppressed minority in Sri Lanka, and have faced racist discrimination, and violent, state-sponsored pogroms for decades now. Supporting the Tamil struggle for self-determination is a necessary starting point for understanding the nature of the ongoing conflict. One can then go on to take a critical look at the LTTE, and even reject them altogether, without denying that the Tamils have every right to fight back against Sinhala chauvinism.
LeftyProf,
you’re certainly correct but much critical scholarship on the events that provided a catalyst to extant feelings of Tamil nationalism has yet to be done. My biggest grey area is the ’83 riots, when my mother was trapped in her apt. building in Bambalapitiya (Colombo) while the apparent carnage went on outside–do you know of any scholarly works covering this period, with reliable statistics regarding deaths, property damage and the level of state complicity?
My eternal lament is that the truly dangerous scholarship–that which examines the LTTE’s role in post-80s SL–is not being done out of a perceived threat to the scholar, if he/she decided to make such a study public (and published).
I personally will not offer opinions, solicited or unsolicitied, on the LTTE if I’m sure that the other parter in conversation is an SL Tamil that i’m not familiar with, through family.
DiamondGeezer, excuse my ignorance, but can you elaborate? How so? I’m asking because most of what I’ve read has to do with the Madras famines, and the way the British treated the Tamils in that context was inhumanly brutal. But no doubt the ‘divide and conquer’, ‘favor one group’ strategy is a tried and true one among imperialists– Bush is certainly a fan…
Murali,
Sorry, but I can’t think of empirical studies of the ’83 riots. You might check out The Broken Palmyra, by R. Hoole et al., although I’m not sure that it is quite what you would be looking for.
You are right when you say that “much critical scholarship on the events that provided a catalyst to extant feelings of Tamil nationalism has yet to be done.” My own sense of it is that Tamil nationalism emerges as a response to Sinhala chauvinism and state-led discrimination during the 1950s (e.g., those Tamils who had arrived in SL since 1900 were stripped of citizenship and disenfranchised). But until the early seventies Tamil nationalism remains rather moderate. It only begins to radicalize and turn towards armed struggle after a series of violent anti-Tamil pogroms in the mid-sixties, and after repeated attempts at negotiated settlements broke down in the late sixties.
I see your point about not offering opinions on the LTTE one way or another. For my part, I am not Sri Lankan, nor am I Tamilian. My solidarity is with the Tamil people in their struggle for equality; but I don’t see the LTTE as a genuine expression of that desire. They elevated themselves to a position of leadership in the Tamil struggle through dubious means (read: killing off their rivals in groups like PLOTE, EPRLF etc); their strategy of armed struggle has not brought the Tamils any closer to freedom and equality; and they are not accountable to the people they claim to be fighting for.
I suppose it is dangerous to say such things, but they have to be said.
Thank you, Leftyprof, for the reading reccomendation. I am jotting them down in my notebook. There’s so little in the news about Sri-Lanka and I can’t bring myself to read TamilNet or Lankan defence news (esp LK Defence news) without questioning everything said. I’m so crap because I’ve never actually bothered reading a book on Sri-Lanka.
Back to M.I.A. – she’s not a politician, but her voicing of the other demonized side, exploring why people turn to terrorism make me feel that she is serving a positive purpose as an artist and musician. If she had to glamourize her past, then so be it.. as far as I’m concerned, if she’s got me or anyone else reading a book on Sri-Lanka then that’s got to be good thing!
Don’t forget the prison massacres that happened in the same year.
Dr. Rajasundaram, mentioned in S.A. David’s account, was also a Ghandian. The two were among the several political prisoners held and attacked in these prisons. While David would subsequently escape, Dr. Rajasundaram would die a senseless, violent, demeaning death on July 23, 1983 leaving behind four young children and a wife.
I don’t know about scholarly works per se, but in the late 80s Tamil Nadu newspapers reported extensively (on a daily basis) on the situation in Colombo, Jaffna, Trincomallee, Batticoalo, etc.
Her points don’t just apply to the alterative/indie scene. Not only are women misrepresented, they are also under-represented. This is especially true as you leave the more mainstream genres. For example, in jazz, women instrumentalists are an EXTREME rarity, just in terms of numbers. So when one comes along, the industry to all to quick to label her a novelty.
One more thing, I caught MIA’s set at Virgin Fest yesterday. She rocked it. High energy, intense, and most importantly, no lip-synching. I think it’s quite apposite to this post that the two best performers I saw yesterday were MIA and Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
from the article…
She’s as conflicted and confused as the rest of us. She’s hustled and used whatever, whenever to get herself out there too. I don’t think she regrets it, but it’s made her harder to define. Politics aside (it is possible) it’s nice to see someone, especially a female someone, who reps a different kind of brown experience in the world.
This is so true, and so frustrating. Being a female musician is hard enough, and regardless of Diplo’s influence (or lack thereof) on her albums, I appreciated Maya calling out the tendency and desire for journalists to attribute success anywhere (male) but with the artist herself.
Aahh, mistakes, mistakes. In comment # 34
Dr. Rajasundaram was killed on July 25, 1983 Tamil Nadu newspapers, including The Hindu, reported extensively not just in ‘late’ 80s but immediately after all the above mentioned events unfolded in different parts of Sri Lanka in 1983. Their online archives don’t extend that far back though.
The preferential treatment as I understand it was that English became the language of colonial administration and that Tamils, who were not big landowners like the Sinhalese, pursued Western education and jobs in the bureacracy, medicine and law. I don’t see the situation as being any different from that of Brahmins, Kayasths etc. in colonial India. I don’t agree that this is a good example of a “divide and conquer” policy.
Is the divide and rule theory an excuse that detracts from the fact that Sinhalese have displayed racism towards their Tamil brothers and sisters for no apparent reason other then a deranged sense of racial superiority? I do wonder. My dad’s Sinhalese, but certainly not racist. He’s in his late 60s and romanticizes his school days in Colombo where he had Tamil, Muslim and Eurasian friends at his Catholic boys’ school, but every time I visit a Sri-Lankan blog discussing the civil war, I often read the most racist and ignorant comments by Sinhalese men in and outside Sri-Lanka. Honestly, they make me feel ashamed to be Sinhalese.
That’s what I mean too. 🙂 Thanks for the references.
Hala: Don’t be. Putting aside the Hindu-Muslim communal issues for a moment, visit other India specific sites and you will find a great deal of hate in the comments going on between different Hindu linguistic/caste groups. The only thing different is in SL you now have one particular ethnic group that controls the government & army and is now able to enact discriminatory policies
Louiecypher,
This is true. But it is also true that many Tamils were brought over by the British at the turn of the century as manual laborers to work in the plantations. And it was these Tamils who were the immediate target of post-independence disenfranchisement.
I disagree. The comparison doesn’t work at all. In the Indian situation, you are talking about colonial rulers making use of already existing caste hierarchies, reinforcing them, and utilizing them to their own advantage.
In colonial Ceylon, you had a minority population (Tamils), distinguished from the majority (Sinhalese) by religion and language, but not necessarily by social class/caste hierarchies. This minority was then educated in English, elevated by the colonial powers, and given privileged jobs in the colonial administration. If this isn’t divide-and-conquer, I’m not sure what is. (Think Hutus and Tutsis here, rather than Brahmins/Kayasths and Sudras.) When a minority community is accorded privileges by an occupying power, it stokes resentments within the majority community, not against the occupier, but against the newly elevated minority community (think Sunni, Shia, and U.S. occupiers here). This is the very definition of divide-and-rule, methinks.
That’s divide and conquer, no?
The Indian Tamils brought over were not educated in Eglish, they were plantation workers and were certainly not beneficiaries of any pro-Tamil policies. You make it seem like the Sinhalese & Sri Lankan Tamils were passive in the decision making. Divide & conquer would be the British mandating Tamil or Sinhala as the official language. Divide and conquer would be Belgians creating the concept of separate Hutu & Tutsi races based on skin color and institution preferential treatment of one community over the other. This is not the case here. The English made English the language of administration as they did everywhere and Sri Lankan Tamils & Sinhalese made different decisions regarding their participation in that administration based on their economic situation at that time
Halah,
I think the current climate of Sinhala chauvinism is a reflection, not of the Sinhalese people per se, but of how polarized SL society has become, and of the degree to which communal identities have trumped other forms of identification in mainstream discourse. However, there is an inspiring tradition of progressive, working class Sinhala-Tamil unity and solidarity. The problem, though, is that this tradition has been forgotten, thanks in part to the failures of the Sri Lankan Left. Nevertheless, it was merely a generation or two ago that this unity and solidarity existed, so there is hope yet. Read When Memory Dies, and you’ll see what I mean.
I agree with that, and didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
Of course it would be silly to claim that subject populations are simply passively herded by their colonial masters like sheep. I never implied that the Sinhalese and Tamils were passive in the process. But it doesn’t seem to me to be correct to swing over in the other direction and say that the divisions were simply an unforseeable fallout of British administrative pragmatism. The fact that the Tamils decided to pursue jobs in the colonial bureaucracy does not, and should not, to my mind, absolve the British of culpability in stoking these divisions.
But let me add one clarifying comment. I think that the divisions were created during the colonial period, but I wouldn’t push this argument much further than this. I don’t think that the roots of the conflict are to be found here, but in the post-colonial period proper.
I would be interested in seeing examples of this. Most of the mixed Tamil-Sinhalese I know are from the professional classes, but this might be due to selection bias. I never think of SL as being particularly industrialized back then so it is hard for me to conceive of what working class means in this context
Working class in this context = wage laborers, whether in industry or on plantations. The independence movement had its share of workers’ strikes, particularly in the railways and on the estates. Small, certainly, but indicative. The early years of the LSSP and BLPI (Trotskyist groups) were all about forging such solidarities and cross-ethnic alliances. Sri Lankan society was not always polarized along communal lines like it is today–so it is not surprising that such movements did exist.
LeftyProf and Louiecypher,
So does this mean many Sinhalese have become racist in recent years because of their outrage at the LTTE’s acts of terrorism? Going by what my father says, racism didn’t exist in the world that he knew. But he has been in London since 1959 at age 19 and never returned because he says he is disgusted by what Sri-Lanka has turned into. Seems to me that Sinhalese, or rather the Sinhalese government have been trying to define a Sinhalese Buddhist identity, but why at the expense of Tamils? These questions bother me a lot. The claim to Aryan descent has me wondering too. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t British anthropolgists/ethnologists introduce the concept of Aryan supremacy in the sub-continent?