M.I.A. - KALA

"Anyone who likes this should probably explore bollywood music. there's good stuff out there-- much better than this, anyway."

And while you're at it, anyone who likes "$20" should probably explore this thing called rock music! There's good stuff out there!

Also, house and hip hop and dancehall! There's good stuff out there too!

I'm just glad someone else didn't like "boyz".

And he even gave better reasoning for not liking it than I did

Haha M.I.A. always brings the trolls out.

I can't wait to download this and be completely baffled by M.I.A. AGAIN.

I have no idea why but suddenly I was thinking that M.I.A.'s closest forebear might be Kate Bush. I wish I knew WHY I thought that, but it seems to be something to do with conceptual reach and treatment of source materials as opposed to actual sound. Probably just something random based on the rhetoric on this thread.

Ha ha Ned upthread I said:

""Boys" and "Bird Flu" remind me of Kate Bush's "The Dreaming" more than anything else."

:-D Then I was unconsciously channeling you, good sir. But without wanting to force a parallel too much, I'm wondering if there isn't more to it in the sense not just of creative independence (and associated perceptions on the part of an audience vis-a-vis female artists) but 'English' identity. M.I.A. will never sing "Oh England My Lionheart" (if anything Sinead's "Black Boys on Mopeds" is more apropos) and yet she strikes me as *very* English for all that she is working and identifying with a wider world consciousness. If that makes sense.

"Also, she comes across as a bit annoying herself in that new pitchfork interview."

no she comes across as someone who raises some important points.

A lot of the songs here and on Arular question whether one can even believe in identity politics when that great, big world outside, whether it's terrorism or lots of fine import records, keeps impinging.

She sure sounds a bit ranty and unhinged in that Pitchfork interview. Considering how much love she gets from music critics, it comes off kind of weird. Bad breakup with Diplo maybe??

Perhaps she's just not willing to accept the fact that women can't make or distribute music without help from men?

She sure sounds a bit ranty and unhinged in that Pitchfork interview. Considering how much love she gets from music critics, it comes off kind of weird. Bad breakup with Diplo maybe??

-- Moodles, Saturday, August 4, 2007 7:19 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

good call! or maybe it was her time of the month!

Yeah, the pancakes were a tip off

the interview is a bit off-putting (and calling attention to her myspace rant doesn't help her case). perhaps she reads too much of her own press - i definitely read sutff about diplo, but i certainly didn't have the impression that she was anything less than a full partner in arular. that may still not be given her not enough credit, but it's far from being a puppet.

she's probably just pissed b/c her ex gets credit for her breakthrough.

anyway, i still like the album (and much better than arular)

Okay listening to this now: she's totally making up the lyrics as she goes along, which I'm leaning towards being a good thing.

Re Timbaland's teepee line, is deliberately confusing the two "Indians" a rap meme or something?

I don't mean to be rude with my breakup comment, I just think she seems oddly angry at Diplo. Is it really true that he had no hand whatsoever in her sound? And didn't she first get recognition because of his mixtape?

And if she thinks that more women should make and distribute music without the help of men, that is perfectly reasonable. But I don't think anyone is saying that women can't do that or shouldn't or that she can't. I also don't think that she's somehow been overshadowed by Diplo or anyone else. In fact, she's been the object of fawning praise, so I really don't get what she is so angry about.

"Galang" first emerged at the end of 2003 or so didn't it? Did M.I.A. and Diplo even know each other at that stage?

I always got the impression he was only involved in "Bucky Done Gun" and "U.R.A.Q.T." on Arular - and which fittingly dabble in funk carioca and baltimore beat respectively. I could imagine Diplo introducing M.I.A. to those sounds, but she hardly would have needed Diplo to explain dancehall to her (and dancehall forms the stylistic backbone of that album).

she hardly would have needed Diplo to explain dancehall to her

Wow, now I'm imagining the bizarre world where Diplo DID need to explain dancehall to her. It must be the same world where Dave Marsh explains house music to Derrick May.

because m.i.a. invented dancehall?!? i have no problem believing diplo knows more about it than her

I have no problem assuming they were both fanatics already!

i thought m.i.a. learned about rap music from peaches

She learned about it from me, which was a mistake given my assumptions about dancing in America. :-/

This is all beside the point, the real question is whether its Boyz or Paper Planes that is the unstoppable heat-seeking perfectly contrived summer pop song for me this year.

At the moment I'm going for Boyz solely for the "how ya doin? Pukka bounce" bit.

It's "What We Do Now? Dapper Dance"

lol summer pop song

My problem with Boyz is that it starts out so promising and then her vocals basically smother anything interesting about the beat with that corny nursery rhyme rhythm.

Which is also the problem with Bird Flu

lol summer pop song

Well the sun has only just come out over here so us Britishes are probably getting carried away.

lol 'baltimore beat'

I kinda understand where she's coming from and it did always seem like she pretty much had her first album done and her whole sound in place before she met Wes Gully, but it does really just come off like sour grapes personal shit that noone in the public needs to hear. Reacting too extremely to the whole "noone thinks I can do anything on my own because I'm a woman" thing is how we get situations like crazy-ass Lauryn Hill not giving any credit/money to people who worked on her album because she's paranoid about people thinking Wyclef is more talented than her.

I almost started liking "$20" today. If I hear it a few more times, I will probably love it.

My problem with Boyz is that it starts out so promising and then her vocals basically smother anything interesting about the beat with that corny nursery rhyme rhythm.

I sort of agree with you WRT Bird Flu but surely Boyz is all about the nursery rhyme rhythm with both the beats and the vocals. It's the fact they're so intertwined with one another that gives the song its momentum - Boyz = glam rock essentially.

"Boyz" is far from the least interesting song -- "XR2" strikes me as the album's dullest retread; and I haven't yet gotten "Mango Pickle Down River," which sounds like Musical Youth stuck in Bollywood so not entirely charmless.

<i>Reacting too extremely to the whole "noone thinks I can do anything on my own because I'm a woman" thing is how we get situations like crazy-ass Lauryn Hill not giving any credit/money to people who worked on her album because she's paranoid about people thinking Wyclef is more talented than her.</i>

i thought of lauryn hill as well. (wasn't that what <I>lost ones</i> was about? that song is great).. what i thought was, ppl treating women artists like they can't do things for themselves = no surprise. it happens in most fields! as does the response that one should just pretend like everything is OK, not talk about it, nor react to it, because it's best to keep your mouth shut.

what gets me though is, I see the point that maybe working in an office you pick your battles and don't call out anyone in public.. but a female hip hop artist can't say what's on her mind either when she's pissed off about something? Can she ever?

No. Who wants to listen to that?

"live in bed chew on wheat/watch Desperate Housewives on cable/menstrual cramps gonna get you/made it in my kitchen/from the crap you drop/on my casserole when they pay you."

/inner-sexist

iron my shirt bitch

(sorry)

"lol 'baltimore beat'"

Argh I wrote that. the ridiculous "balearic beat" tag has infected my brain clearly.

"because m.i.a. invented dancehall?!? i have no problem believing diplo knows more about it than her"

Probably, but the dancehall sound on Arular is so dancehall 101, and indeed never advances beyond that rudimentary approach except (ironically) on a Richard X production (although he'd indulged in dancehall productions himself before). It's hard to believe that anyone with even the most passing awareness of the style's existence would need the concept explained to them - and unlike Brazilian funk and baltimore house, dancehall was regularly charting very well at the time, was being played in a lot of clubs, had always been very popular in the UK...

It's not so much like teaching Derrick May about techno - more like if Diplo tried to teach US college kids about emo. Although maybe he does that too??? I don't keep up perhaps.

so JIMMY is blates BONEY M right?

i'm sure every1's said this upthread. too long to read it all.

Haha M.I.A. always brings the trolls out.

Yes, the opposite of a fan is a troll. What an utterly simple-minded, foolish thing to say.

dancehall was regularly charting very well at the time, was being played in a lot of clubs, had always been very popular in the UK...

Yup. So while my analogy was fairly ridiculous to start with (of course!), point is is that, especially for anyone living in London, it's hardly something new and/or strange that needs explaining especially if you're interested in popular dance music there.

"What an utterly simple-minded, foolish thing to say."

Oh yes, as opposed to the stunning insights visited upon us by Richard Wood Johnson.

Yeah Ned I didn't think you were being serious with your analogy.

Oh yes, as opposed to the stunning insights visited upon us by Richard Wood Johnson.

...And the red herring fallacy rears its ugly head. We were not discussing the stunningness of anyone's insights, Alex, but rather the question of whether someone who presents a divergent point of view is automatically a "troll."

I agree, Richard, you're not a troll, but you're posts upthread were pretty arrogant and presumptuous.

I have no problem with divergent points of view, but it's also pretty clear that the people on M.I.A. threads who profess to not like her music (but just as often seem not to like her for whatever reason) tend to be a nastier and more sanctimonious lot than most.

"I don't mean to be rude with my breakup comment, I just think she seems oddly angry at Diplo."

Really it seems more like she's really irrititated with journos to me.

but you're posts upthread were pretty arrogant and presumptuous.

I agree that I made strong comments, but I fail to see how this is in itself an affront. The intensity of my comment against is no stronger than the intensity of many of the comments for, and you shouldn't take my disdain for MIA's music as a personal attack, just as I don't take anyone's pity for me as MIA non-believer personally. Anyway, I don't want to drag this thread into the usual quasi-philosophical territory that controversial topics usually end up in, where people begin quoting each other out of context, start deconstructing their psyches, and eventually accusing each other of being closet racists. But I would like to impress the point that I see nothing wrong with expressing one's taste with passion. It makes things more fun.

i know i'm having fun.

hurting is otm about the vocals overpowering everything else, but 'boyz' is easily my favorite track on an album jammed with duds. i loved 'arular' but the thing that had me so smitten on that album - the rhythms - are precisely why i'm not feeling 'kala'. they seem half-baked, lacking decent hooks, and are just plain uninteresting to me. on second listen i actually skipped through the majority of the album, it just wasn't compelling to me.