Ananthan points us to a new music video for M.I.A.’s ‘Bucky Done Gun.’ The mix she uses, the official one from Arular, is so spare that it can hardly sustain a video, leaving me squirming during the long gaps when nothing’s happening musically. The version from Piracy Funds Terrorism is much higher energy.
The video is beautifully filmed, though, black and white recolored in pastels, much higher production values than her early efforts. It’s strange seeing gritty radical chic, itself poseur, turn glossy like a high end photography mag. The video recolors a pair of loudspeakers to match the Palestinian flag, and M.I.A.’s checkered tights evoke the PLO kaffiyeh. Its firebomb-throwing young men are porn for the ultra-left, but the images are carefully sanitized: you see colored Holi smoke streaming from bottles, but you don’t see any actual explosions or maimings. In another bid for hip-hop authenticity, the label surrounds Maya with a swarm of backup dancers who are black.
In M.I.A.’s attitude you can already see the shift from awkward ingénue to sexually confident diva. The video opens with M.I.A. in a boxer’s hood, mike dangling from the ceiling. A clear homage to ‘Mama Said Knock You Out,’ it’s the very definition of aggression. The gaze from beneath the bangs covering half her face is no longer diffident, it’s brassy, painted and unblinkingly heavy-lidded. Her previous videos have been much more playful; this one’s simultaneously more serious and more trashy, with Maya and her main backup dancer pole-writhing against a chain-link fence.
I should cheer for a performer coming into her own, but it feels like a Miltonian loss of innocence. Yeah, I’m already nostalgic for M.I.A. circa 2004 😉
Update: Here are the lyrics:
They’re comin through the window
They’re comin through the door
They’re bustin down the big wall
And sounding the hornWhat you want
The bucky done gun
What you want
The fire done burn
Get crackin, get get crackinTime to spit new shit
I’m rocking on this new bit
I’m hot now you’ll see
I’ll fight you just to get peaceHeavy weight wrestler
Fight me in your comforter
Let you be superior
I’m filthy with the fury yaI’ll hard drive your bit
I’m battered by your sumo grip
Lucky I like feeling shit
My stamina can take itGymnastics super fit
Muscles on the gun clip
Bite, teeth, nose bleed
Tied up in the scarf pieceCan I get control
Do you like me vulnerable
I’m armed and I’m equal
More fun for the peoplePhysical, brute force
Steel, iron, you’re the boss
Yeah, you’re so do-able
Grind me down sugar salt
So Tati Quebra Barraco singing is different?
Are you saying that a musician must create the whole song, from beat to rhythm to vocals, in order to not be “fake”?
That would be one hell of a bizarre attitude from someone who mocks MIA because “but everything she did was pressing a button!”
Are you saying that Fuck Carioca isn’t made that way?
ANNA, you’re right. I guess I wanted to have a real discussion about Funk Carioca and its influence on musicians outside Brazil.
Will wait patiently until that sentient being shows up.
So what the heck is so new about faking a Caribbean accent? Talk to anybody from Sri Lanka lately? Sooo desperate to sound Trini, although they do seem to have superior cutlass skills
yes, they do 😉
(ugh..so not funny. But we need a littl gallow’s humor to make the koththamalli go down, yeah?)
What? Only heavily accented post-colonial, mutated English please. But then again if dopey white boys from the suburbs be reppin’ like the Yin Yang twins…well, it’s all good
WOW IS THE BEST I HEAR IN VERY LONG TIME! SHEŽS ESPECTACULAR! I LO VE HER SHEŽS THE BEST!
The horn sample from BDG is indeed from the Rocky theme. Listen to it again and you’ll recognize it (if not, read cd sleeve credits).
As Cicatrix has pointed out, BF is just a miami bass spinoff so i dont see MIA/Diplo cant spin off of BF? Though saying that they “sampled BF” is like saying so and so sampled hip hop or rock. Isnt it more like they did a bf song?
BDG is also the only Diplo produced song on her disc.
Totally dug your piece in City Pages, btw, Cicatrix. Perhaps you will find this link interesting: http://www.lankatruth.com/full_story/Sept_2005/27092005/full_story_20050927_5.htm
Btw, both Piracy Funds Terrorism and (Diplo’s)Favela on Blast mixes are available here: http://www.cokemachineglow.com/reviews/miadiplo_arularet2005.html
Btw, cicatrix, i also just saw No More Tears Sister. It was made by a Canadian chick (Helene Klodawsky) and produced by the Canadian National Film Board and my sister happens to work there. It should probably be playing on CBC Newsworld soon (CBC is the Canadian NBC or BBC and Newsworld is the secondary channel devoted to documentary type programs).
Sucks to hear about the Tiger types showing up at that screening. Talk about continuing insult to injury.
While we’re on the MIA and documentary/video tip, you might be interested to peep this behind the scenes look at the filming of a music video for a Somali-Canadian MC named K’NAAN in Kenya.
K’naan left Somalia around the same age Maya left SL and like Maya’s crew shooting in India for Sunshowers cuz SL was too heaty, K’naan’s crew had to go to neighbooring Kenya instead. They shot in the Somalian ghetto enclave called Kibera (which was also featured in the movie the Constant Gardner).
BEHIND THE SCENES: http://www.directcurrentmedia.com/display.asp?catID=2&pageID=7&videoID=204
SOOBAX MUSIC VIDEO: http://www.directcurrentmedia.com/display.asp?catID=2&pageID=7&videoID=184
Sorry, dunno how to do them active link thingys but thought you (or some others) may be interested.
As far as baile funk influencing shit outside of brazil, i think you’ll have to give it more time, its still largely unknown even in lots of undergrounds scenes, I reckon but aslong as people dont notice the brazilian chants and stuff, some of the stuff can fit right into a breaks/booty set without anyone noticing what it is, I think.
Where’d you get them BDG lyrics, btw? Aint so on, ya?
she not tryna sound trini….its LONDON accent which is similar to trini and gt
I’m brazililan, and brazilian funk isn’t copied from outside, the samples are totally remade, the samples make new “melodies” if you can call it that way (the melody side of it is poor really, it’s more about the primitive beat). What M.I.A did was direct copy. Which is OK since DJ Marlboro authorized it. Yea he did authorize it.
If you want to know more about funk it’s probably gonna be hard to find information in english since it’s such a guetto movement, disliked by the high society, who would write about it in stereotypes and pejorative ways.
I can give you some key words to search for brazilian funk: – Furacao 2000 (“Furacão 2000”, if your keyboard can do that) – Equipe Pipo’s – DJ marlboro – Veronica Costa – Romulo costa – Claudinho e Bochecha – Vinicius e Andinho – Tati quebra barraco (this one really sucks, imo, but for some reason she’s a success right now, i don’t get it) – MC Marcinho e MC William
Although the funnest funks are usually called “Montagem” so you can search about that too. It’s similar to what Diplo should have done to Engessão, instead of copying it.
Funk can also be refered to as “rap” but that’s been stopped for 10 years i think.
Hf and good luck (there are very bad music amongst what you’ll find hehe, but some are really fun).
ok i just want to say one thing someone said that the track was on a Brazilian Baile Funk sample but i read somewhere that it was actually using a sample from an old song by Afrikaa Bambaataa or someone of that same time period perhaps soul Sonic Force who are both Hip-Hop/Techno-Pop Futurism DJs, Afrikaa Bambaataa having the hit of 1982 Planet Rock, and Soul Sonic Force the hit Searching For The Perfect Beat Or Funky Beat i cant remember right now but both are awesome. anyway i definitely love M.I.A. her music is so original to me here in the U.S. and her beats are crazy sick, and i just could go on and on about how much i love her, because she kicks ass and rules. well im not here to start anything but i also do want to say this M.I.A. has repeatedly denied claims of having ties with the terrorism rumors, as well as being part of the Tamil Tigers or whoever. btw almost anything that she is on i love because its always so fresh and new. i am an open minded music listener anyway so perhaps thats the reason. whatever it is i totally support M.I.A. 10000000000% lol and i think she is one of the sexiest women on the planet!!! but hey thats me. and in Galang i thought the same so its not because of her highlights or her straightening of her hair, she is sexy regardless.
Sluggo, do you notice how your version of the lyrics don’t make any sense at all?
Btw, since when in hip-hop, dancehall or any other related genre is sampling “uncreative”? Isn’t that the foundation of the music itself? So what if she borrows from other cultures or styles? The genre is one of sound collage, and she has some of the freshest beats I’ve ever heard. And as far as her “fake” accent- it’s called actually being Sri Lanken.
It’s just typical though- a female artist makes some sincerely good music and everyone can’t wait to tear her down. sigh
ok hands up how many people know this means. “bucky done gun.” if you are from the west indies like me then you already know that it means “he’s already gone.” all non west indians shut up and stay out of this. her accent is London, either west end or east end. which means she would have no doubt have been exposed to the London style reggae. and by the way, reggae is rarely made in Jamaica anymore since they death of robert nestor marley. what you get from Jamaica now is Dancehall. both although made by the same inspirations are very differnt.
Now M.I.A. much more clearly uses london style in her song boyz. the beats are unmistakeable. you know lily allen also uses London style reggae beats in most of her songs. look if you don’t know what you’re talking about jump.
you have to be west indian to know what that means. people that are not from our region and our backgrounds don’t know anything about our culture. you only know about the beaches. so therefore you have no right or place even trying to explain something from our collective cultures.
thank you for your time.