As much as I love MIA’s music, explaining her politics has been one continuous migraine. Especially since I live in hipsterland, and all the kool kids wanted to know if I was related to a “freedom fighter” too when she first made a splash with Arular. She’s toned down the LTTE rhetoric recently and, heaven help me, I’m still a huge fan…but there’s a new Sri Lankan kid on the scene, and he’s determined to inject another perspective into the fray and take her down a peg or two.
“All she wanna do is [bang][bang][bang] and [ka-ching!] take your money” he raps over MIA’s “Paper Planes” instrumental while images of the aftermath of LTTE suicide bombs flash across the screen. (The images are as gruesome as one would expect, so please consider this a disclaimer.)
The video was released less than a week ago, and keeps getting yanked off YouTube by Universal Music Group (MIA’s record label). Go to CeylonRecords to see it if the embedded video above has been disabled. Meet Delon Jayasingha. Biodata are thin on the ground, but it looks like he’s from L.A. (born there?) and going by his last name, clearly has a Sinhala Sri Lankan dad. He’s coined a new genre named “Salsa Hip-Hop” that sounds exactly as described – hiphop rhymes over salsa rhythms. Check out the link to see a video from his album, The Connection.
His original songs don’t grab me quite the way MIA’s do, but it’s pretty fantastic to have two Sri Lankans out there making ripples. And yeah, I still do think that MIA’s a musical phenomenon. The song is catchy, however you cut it. In terms of her SL politics, however, she’s an opportunist at worst and terribly naive at best. Can’t wait to see how this plays out!
Update: MIA responds:
“I don’t support terrorism and never have,” she wrote in a statement. “As a Sri Lankan that fled war and bombings, my music is the voice of the civilian refugee. Frankly, I am not trying to start dialogue with someone who is really just seeking self-promotion.”
Zing! Does this mean she’s the “establishment” Sri Lankan pop musician now? Reading her statement is pretty amusing since her first album was named for her father’s rebel code name, and she faced accusations of self-promotion herself. For now it appears that the music snobosphere finds her far more exciting than Delon’s derivative output. [Snark meant to encompass this post as well!] But it’s possible that people who dislike MIA’s hard beats (“it sounds like crushing cans!!”-overheard comment) might be exactly the type to gravitate to DeLon’s suburban pimpin’ ways. Hey, even Ja Rule had a heyday.
And even I can get on the MIA train and “self-promote”, dammit! The Pitchfork link references an old Robert Christgau article which in turn referenced my comments on a nerdy music site. I’m the half-n-half in the “heartrending roller coaster of a political debate.” There are so few Sri Lankans talking about the situation there that anyone gets noticed. Even dumbasses with bad handles. And that’s all due to MIA showing up and forcing her way to the forefront of an insular scene with talent, Elastica connections and an exotic backstory. As irritating as Delon the person might be (I’ve watched his other youtube videos since the original post. Smug, much?) now he’s out there talking about Sri Lanka too. And maybe somehow we’ll get to point when people understand there are no sides, just greed and corruption.
Then again, I’d also like a stable full of unicorns, but Mr. C says it ain’t happening.
Thanks to Sonali in NO for the tip!
What’s a sudu? Who said MIA represents Sri Lanka? Why does DeLon represent Sri Lanka? What Sri Lanka does DeLon represent?
The SL news rivals the Onion for sheer comedy. Ministers attacking tv crews and stealing their cameras. Bureaucrats convicted of massive corruption, pardoned, then attending the Olympics with the prez. Wimal Weerawansa. 30% inflation.
What a mess. It’ll get worse before it gets better.
yeah, not too long ago someone hacked into one of the papers their. the added clever nursery rhymes filled with inuendo and cursing. they didnt catch em the final proof.
pro-journalism. sri-lanka is full of it!
I have to say this:
The lyrics of Delon’s song represents how people that have lived through this shit are really unnerved and freaked out that privileged hipsters and tweens are spoon fed innocuous images about the ltte. But that says more about MIA’s audience(s) than MIA. I am concerned about people latching on to this song by Delon too. I understand being angry/fed up because the ltte have fucked up a lot of people’s lives and the deaths on public transit and trains recently is especially horrifying. The deaths in Jaffna and the east continue to be horrifying.
We always have to understand these are not conceptual violence happening in a conceptual place in geopolitics. It’s a home to a lot of people. There’s no gated community in ‘the first world’ to escape to. Its HOME. That kind of daily insecurity really messes with people’s heads. Its not easy, and its real. So, yeah, people are going to get scared and defensive and say MIA is the devil, because they feel her presence and her voice will cause them more insecurity and trouble. While I’m disappointed at the lack of open minded dialogue about this stuff, I understand that all the manufacturing of fear on ALL sides makes that difficult to do, and it makes swallowing the pill Delon is trying to sell us a lot easier to do for some. And the pill that thoughtless ltte supporters are trying to get us to swallow a lot easier for some.
Even MIA herself has said something a long the lines of “I just survived all this insecurity in sri lanka and india in my childhood. I’m in the UK now and now I have to deal with this shit again!?â€
And the stuff in the UK she was talking about was the London underground train bombings. So she’s talking about insecurity all around; not ‘pro-terrorism’.
There are so many kick ass people on the island working towards good shit. Lets not forget.
i think this forum has the potential to drive a fist through all that fear.
102 · sonali in the n.o. said
That was awesome
noodles –
i agree with you whole heartedly. if anything, its music that makes you think about things othe music out there isnt.
i think unfortunately that this whole thread gets a bit one dimensional when people drop to say “yeah go ! F*ck __!” and leave the thread.
its doesnt promote understanding.
delon would be cool if he answered to the conflicts we as sri lankans have tried to deal with when thinking about MIA and her irresistable beats. Instead its this sort “you bad. me good. me tarzan. you jane.” sort of campaign. it’s very propagandish. its almost frightening. he is a little fanatical. it’s scary. it would have been dope if a more subtle, clever, creative person had made the attack/diss. really.
forgive my bad typing im at work on an ancient dell tower and keyboard.
IF ANYONE KNOWS DELON PERSONALLY I WOULD LOVE TO ENGAGE IN DISCUSSION WITH HIM. HOLLA AT ME.
101 · apples said
sude=u = white a sudu is white person. suda also means to clean f*cked up huh?
thats some serious calculus. sudu = white.
yes! coudn’t agree more.
Delon’s song is reactionary. Its angry.
I don’t really like the content of the lyrics, but a lot of people that live under the terror of bombings from the state army or from the tiger army DO think “WTF!!?” when they see tiger images thrown around. Those are images that carry the burden of so many deaths, so much violence, so much ANXIETY. So of course, some kid is going to say, yo, wtf MIA?
BUT, I think Delon isn’t just some kid asking WTF? He just says “they’re terrorists! Terrorists! Terrorists!” really loudly over and over. That isn’t productive of anything good.
the tigers are awful. but I think MIA would say a big ‘duh. no sh***’ to that. she doesn’t stand by and blindly support any org like that.
and by “any org like that”
i mean she wouldn’t support blindly in that manner.
at the same time it should be understood that the ltte come out of a certain history. the other movements that the ltte morphed out of (many of which disown the the ltte as it exists now) were really progressive and promising. then all the gunmen and all the money and all the cruelty entered the picture.
and “I don’t really like the content of the lyrics” is too kind. the lyrics stink. its a one note analysis. props to mia for being complicated.
(last post, i promise!)
I got more respect for MIA for talking about her struggled past against discrimination whether it was in Srilanka or in England. She is one of the few Desis to make it on her own in the music business with out a rich Daddy or Mommy and literally out of the projects. These days innuendos, and fear mongering go a long way in spreading doubts. I am no fan of the Ltte or the government. Any government that drops bombs and shells its own people (no matter what the circumstances are) looses the right to rule those people in my book. There can be no excuse to that sort of thing as there can be none when ltte kills innocents Though not a hipster myself, I met many “hipsterland†people listening to MIA. Not a single one knew anything more about Srilanka or ltte from listening to her. They interpret her songs (that if they really care for the lyrics) to whatever context they relate to. I personally don’t think she is a good singer (and a bad dancer) but I still like the beats. I lived in the same area in Srilanka at the same time she was there and I can clearly understand why she would hate the government if that is the case. From what I see here, Delon has no street cred to be attacking MIA without knowing what she went through as a child in Srilanka. He can go on and attack the ltte all he wants as Sonali mentioned but I see no reason for him to be linking MIA to be ltte. But if people like Delon can get more people to google srilanka or ltte, that itself is a positive thing. It would have been nice though if he can do it in a sophisticated way than just attacking someone as a terrorist sympathizer. If you are not with us, you are with the terrorists line has been used way too many times.
MIA’s response:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/142861-mia-responds-to-pro-terrorism-accusations
refreshingly insightful analysis
anyone have recommendations on BALANCED written work on the conflict in Sri Lanka?
113 · Thee said
Great comments, I’m inclined to agree. Where I live in Seattle, there’s pretty much the same ignorance about Sri Lanka and the LTTE by people here (excluding the local Desi and Asian American community of course). M.I.A.’s music gets a lot of rotation in Seattle’s hipster scene still, though.
You have to wonder about the timing of the whole DeLon diss, though… as others have mentioned, it smacks more of self-promotion than protest. I mean, starting beef is a time-honored hip-hop tradition, but if Delon had a problem with M.I.A., why didn’t he say anything during her first album (Arular)? IMO, Arular seemed a lot more focused on M.I.A.’s background and Sri Lanka than her second album (Kala). Whether or not DeLon has the skillz to back-up his politics… well, we’ll see.
i guess if delon donned a white suit and homburg hat we’d all be burning bonfires full of MIA cds. but apparently he sees the importance of being earnest, so those of us who are so nuanced we can distinguish between shaken martinis and those stirred at leonard bernstein’s cocktail parties, must remember that nuance is like patriotism: the last refuge of the scoundrel.
let us all remember: delon is a sh*tty rapper.
RIP DeLon. Your rep is gone.
HOLLLLLAAAAAAAAAA!!!
seriously this whole argument is dead. can we talk about whats REALLY happening in srilanka, rather than the two people talking about it who arent there?
thnx.k.bai.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sinhala/news/story/2008/07/080729_saarc.shtml
118 · Manju said
There is no parsing of details or ‘interrogation of conflicting narratives’ going on here. The reason you’re not saying this about a frightening collage of civilians killed/maimed by SLA/SLA-affiliated forces is that any Tamil artist crass enough to use such dogwhistles as images of mutilated children to make such an argument, easily justified in the traditional empirical manner, are rightly dismissed as the ill-informed, suburb commando hubris-pukers that they are. I actually know quite a few former members of the SLA who saw combat, and the reasons that they give for quitting were pretty much universal–they were tired of supporting a strategy of peppering clearly civilian areas with anti-personnel weapons intended for the battlefield, tired of collateral damage, unable any longer to act the sociopath in what they had known and loved as a genteel civil society.
Is this bigger then old rap battles from the 80s just with a political twist with street soldiers, secret agencies, terrorists etc. I find this diss alot more interesting then Frankee vs Eamon with the “Fuck You” song.. Haha .. Props to Delon Jayasingha for stepping up and saying something other then how much bling bling he got. The bridge wars just started all over again in new dimensions!
120 · Nayagan said
Well said.
Try Nira Wickramasinghe, Sumantra Bose, Rohan Edrisinha, or David Scott. I’m not an expert though, so someone who’s better read than me could offer more detailed feedback on these or other authors.
I’m enjoying Delon’s version of the song mostly b/c of the MIA’s beat. “All she wanna do is [bang][bang][bang] and [ka-ching!] take your money†is superbly catchy. I’m not sure if I’m in love with Delon’s voice (reminds me a little bit of Adam Sandler??), I’ll have to check out more of his music.
Given that it’s one company negotiating with another company about pulling content without any exploration of the merits of the individual situation, I would say so. This is really sad on YouTube’s part if they’re operating like this, but it’s not that surprising, I think.
115 · apples said
YES!! well well said. you cannot pigeon hole her.
Thanks, Dr AmNonymous.
This thread made my head hurt.
So like…no one noticed how calculated this was? The best way to get famous is to set yourself up as the antagonist of someone who’s already famous and piss off his / her fanboys.
Suddenly you’ve got your 15 minutes, if you’re lucky. Or seconds, since we’re talking Youtube.
Let’s see how well he can use it, if at all.
I like MIA’s shtick, but I’ve got to say, this is legitimate, clever, and if MIA suppresses it, she’s part of THE MAN — you can’t classify yourself as radical and underground and play with terrorist chic and then repress the comeback. Maybe MIA is just as corporate as the next act…….ghetto sells, but what happens when the ghetto answers back?
Good luck to them all.
The problem is that this dialogue is now replicating most of the other distressing dialogue about Sri Lanka (and Israel/Palestine and…[insert name of former British colony here]). You start with a supporter of “one side” and then you get a response from someone from the “other side” and all of a sudden everyone’s squabbling and conflict resolution and legitimate historical inquiry go out the window. Which is actually detrimental.
Who’s fault is it? Well MIA bears some responsibility for being really f@#king irresponsible, but the response is not so much better–sometimes it’s not about what you say, but how you say it. Also I find it mind-boggling that this person didn’t realize that MIA was an LTTE supporter in name at minimum, which the lyrics make him sound like. I mean, it’s good to wake up and all, but not if you’re going to do so in such a naive way. LTTE = Al Qaeda? Come on–unproductive.
Dr Amnonymous
Rap music has never really been known for its nuanced Platonic dialogue on any issue. On something as emotive as this, what do you expect? The form is all about declaration, posturing, alluding to things. MIA has ridden the tiger (excuse the pun) and now her song gets played in a blockbuster Hollywood comedy action movie about white guys smoking weed sending it up the Billboard charts, all that alluding to the Tamil Tigers chic (remember the Sun Showers video?) just doesn’t pay anymore. A little too close to the bone.
To be honest the other guy doesn’t seem too talented, but so what? As a reaction to the iconography she employed, it’s interesting to at least hear a comeback. MIA has the protection of American hipsters, massive music corporations, she’s a poster child for them all, Spike Jonze, Beastie Boys, all of them want a piece of MIA. The Tamil girl from London is a millionairess, the absolute sharpest point of the cutting edge, bringing the Third World ‘authentic’ with a cute English accent from Greenwich Village to the beaches of Malibu. If someone got viscerally angry and dissed her back, because they thought she was soft soaping a terrorist organisation, how can you complain? She never stopped flirting with the imagery until just now, never stopped playing up her khakhi back catalogue.
I just see it as part of life, she should accept it, and move on. Anyway I like her music, and I wish her all the best.
The other problem is that Delon’s about as ghetto as Paris Hilton.
127 · Salil Maniktahla said
that’s what i was working towards here but of course got lost in the details.
but what kind of ‘comeback’ is it? it’s not iconographic, stylistic or even humorous. It would have been far more interesting had the comeback come by way of someone who cared enough to properly eviscerate instead of the kindergarten, “I know you’re a terrorist, but what am I?” approach.
So what? Why does it have to be any of those things? His point is a blunt instrument, something that the form as a whole specialises in, and to be frank, that MIA has flirted with herself. (You want blunt, let me make a video where I rap in the Sri Lankan jungle with a cadre of Tamil Tiger girls clad in khakhi)
133 · Joolz said
blunt like a pat of room temperature butter.
Sunshowers was filmed in India using local girls. What’s your reference?
It got people talking about the issue. Mission accomplished. As blunt as MIA has been, in her own way. Although musically, less talented.
Reference for what? It’s alluding to the LTTE. It was filmed in India obviously, but it was playing mischievously with the iconography of the LTTE. Suggesting otherwise is just being disingenuous.
There are a lot of different ways to posture and talk about the same topics, even within hip hop. For example, in the Punjabi MC – Jay Z song, I love this verse on the war:
To have that in a mainstream dance song, even if it gets ignored, is a good intervention. It’s different from Memorial Day by the Perceptionists (which isn’t as catchy but has sharper politics in the lyrics) and it’s in a different context, but both are useful interventions. What Delon did was make a non-constructive intervention – a destructive one even. Maybe it’s inevitable in some ways, but I like to think that we have some agency in the world and can be evaluated on, though not judged, for the consequences of our actions. I think that’s a particularly important idea for thinking about something like an “intractable” conflict.
oops left out a couple lines 🙂
Putting boundaries on how things can be said and the way in which they’re said is useless. People are always going to sloganeer like this. The form is suited for it.
It doesn’t claim to be doing either. That’s not the point of it.
Delon claims he was reacting to the silence surrounding MIA’s flirtation of the iconography of one side of the conflict in the first place, which he claims is preciesely detrimental in the way you suggest. He seems like a hack to me, but it certainly made a few people think about and discuss things here. Mission accomplished.
if that’s what you’re looking for, I understand, but having seen columns of uniformed schoolgirls, pigtailed and skipping along the road to Kandy…I beg to differ. And it’s not disingenuous to point out that your own statement was leaking false candor.
These are good points, but that doesn’t remove my inclination to push back against HIS iconography and lyrics- that they fall easily into unhelpful ways of talking about the conflict, and that it uses anti-terrorism nonsense to reinforce it (Al Qaeda?) that are unhelpful to American politics and that he generally sounds a bit slow. Whether or not he intended to do that, that’s what he is doing–same as with MIA. Of course things like this will happen – I’m not saying he should be burnt at the stake – just that I wish that his way of inserting himself had reflected a little more emotional and political intelligence — that’s all.
These arguments aren’t consistent with each other. Hip hop very much requires demonstrating creativity (at least intellectual), if we’re talking about the form. If we’re talking about intent, he’s open for critique on the content of his slogans. The boundaries thing is interesting to me- so you think this conversation is a collective process of placing boundaries on what can be said or not in his rhymes (or more broadly in the conversations among some group of people about Sri Lanka)? Because personally I have no ability to place any boundaries on him, having no power in the situation other than participating in the dialogue, so it would have to be that somehow.
Anyway, thanks for the conversation!
140 · Nayagan said
I’ve parked my own opinions somewhere out behind the Circuit City near Saskatchewan, (so not a little taken aback by your tone in #26) but I’m rather curious about this statement Nayagan. Columns of pigtailed schoolgirls… sounds ominous. Not quite sure where Joolz leaked false candor either. Maybe you saw it on that road to Kandy 😉
Really interesting back-and-forth.
142 · Cicatrix said
tone? moi?
i was really more annoyed by Joolz putting this on Ether‘s level, when it’s clearly no more than an invitation to taste unmentionables. (uniforms and hats? suspicious. Pigtails and traveling in column? just reality–and yes I have been to Kandy, no I’m not giving up names for Brigadier Chandare to record.)
133 · Joolz said
She was filmed(in reality, but not in Joolz’s interpretation) in India.
Female cadres were not, going by the public record, present at the shoot.
If one were bothered to read this, then one would know that I do not yearn for more M.I.A. and couldn’t be bothered if she went blunt/nuanced (still struggling with this: girls in the jungle is a blunter instrument than heads rolling and spilled guts.)
What if… MIA was Muslim, her dad is a member of Al-Qaeda, she called her first album with the code-name her dad has in the organisation, she made a music video where she is represented as dancing with suicide bombers/militants somewhere in the Middle east, had plastered the cover of her album, videos, website and t-shirts and whatnot with symbols representing Al-Qaeda and a map of Dar-al-Islam and tried to pass herself off as a “freedom fighter” or representing “freedom fighters”…?
What if… MIA was of German origin, her dad was a member of the Nazis, she called her first album with the rank/military name her dad had in the organisation, she made a music video where she is represented as dancing with storm troopers/Gestapo/SS in Berlin, had plastered the cover of her album, videos, website and t-shirts and whatnot with swastikas and lots and lots of eagles (for those who don’t know the eagle represented the Nazi Party)…?
IMO, MIA is not a naive little girl. She’s just been toning down her Tamil nationalistic rhetoric after realizing that the self-appointed “sole representatives” of the Sri Lankan Tamils weren’t looked upon that kindly by the world, being banned in her adopted country the UK itself. This realization was speeded up by the fact that she was denied entry into the USA several times, and that MTV refused to play some of her songs because of their content.
If she has no qualms about bringing Tamil nationalism and politics into her productions then she and her fans should not have any problem with other Sri Lankans calling her out on it. Plastering her CDs and promotional goods with maps of the ethnically-pure monoethnic “Tamil Eelam” that the LTTE hopes to achieve by butchering and ethically cleansing all non-Tamils (see her first album cover), using the symbol of the Tiger ubiquitously, and dancing in the jungle in a music video with folks who obviously represent female LTTE cadres, is rightly or wrongly going to invite responses from other Sri Lankans.
I’m just surprised it took so long to happen.
Raj, you seem to have some facility with English. I am guessing that English has become a necessity among the Sinhalese with upper middle class aspirations. Too bad your parents’ generation had to make this about Tamils usurping what is rightfully “yours”
Raj, I thought this was about the LTTE. Now it’s about tamil nationalism? Even if she was fronting for an independent tamil state (and i’ve yet to see any evidence of that), is it now also wrong to express a political view in music? The noose is tightening! She should’ve just sung about boys and clothes!
Apples, as I see it the LTTE is the most extreme representation of Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism. They are fighting to create a ethically pure Tamil-only country called “Tamil Eelam” which covers around 30% of Sri Lanka’s land area and approximately 60% of the coastline for less than 12.6% of the population (yes, the claim should win an award for being demographically justified). MIA has a map of that ethnically pure Tamil-only state the LTTE wishes to create on the cover of her Arular album with the words MIA proudly scrawled underneath it (http://www.netweed.com/prohiphop/graf/arular.jpg). The LTTE have succeeded in ethnically cleansing all areas they control of all non-Tamils (and indeed, Tamils who oppose their racist and violent ideology), and the LTTE leader’s annual speeches are forever dripping with Tamil nationalist rhetoric and racism (in the last speech he was ranting against India – the new enemy, the new “other” to hate). The rest of Sri Lanka (thankfully) is multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-cultural despite its flaws. Incidentally, along with the commemoration of July 1983, it would be apt to also commemorate in October the 18th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of the Northern Province of all non-Tamils by the LTTE. In reply to your other question, I don’t think it is wrong to express a political view in music, but those who do shouldn’t have a problem when others respond.
Louiecypher, nice try with that troll. But still a fail.
If equating the Tamils with Nazis/AQ and by extension the Sinhalese (who have the backing of the army & central govt) with the Jewish victims of the Holocaust isn’t trollery, I am not sure what else qualifies. Eelam was a fringe cause until the SLA gave the Tamils a strong push in that direction. If you want to imagine me as an LTTE supporter you can search this blog for other comments I have made on MIA & LTTE. Prabhakaran is a maniac at the head of a dealth cult. But please recognize that they just didn’t pop out of the jungle fully formed.
louiecypher,
The quote from Raj
you seem to have some facility for spin! You should try something with teh McCain camplaign.I heard Carl Rove is looking for young talent.