M.I.A. - KALA

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.

yeah, souring on this big time... feel like I really need to work out (not to post it, just for my own curiousity) what, or what comibnation of things exactly it is that turns me right off about her, I have the nagging feeling no-ones ever really nailed it beyond the typical (and easily dismissable) art-school-up-her-own-arse-rebel-chic cliches...

It may be easier now, without so many agendas & inflammatory opinions swarming around this one (yet) and all the really really glaring drawbacks and obvious problems of the first having been accounted for and dealt with...

funny someone should mention Lily Allen really, it's that kind of under-the-skin hard to place personal sort of niggle that keeps me from even liking MIA (even when her beats are hot) tho' I've warmed to Lily, for one reason or another, she just seems genuinely naive and less professional than some about stuff... MIA otoh seems cold and beyond calculated (again hard to say why) and such an abscence of warmth, humanity, emotion even... in her music.

If she's SOOOOO great why am I almost never moved? Even for a 'dance' record? admittedly there are now a few melodic touches on Kala that seem to point to something deeper, but wow they were a long time coming.

Post again when I've worked it out, or probably just never again and put it down to suckage :p

Is there any dancehall on the new record?

(sorry for not reading thread)

"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."

I don't get this at all, despite it being exactly what my office mate just said to me. I thought that the beats on the first album were boring as shit, just simplistic to the point of tears, and that this album was the polar opposite (I also don't get the "sparse" description of Kala, compared to Arular). I even went back and listened to Arular again, wondering if I'd just mis-remembered. No, no, Arular really did disappoint me. And I really do like Kala a whole lot more (and a whole lot on its own). What was so great about the beats on the first album? The drums were intentionally flat and bland, and the production was 8-bit thin on purpose, and it just doesn't hold up.

i have read thread and am wondering the same... (xp)

i think fandango might actually have a point re MIA's coldness. not a drawback on its own altho for this kind of music maybe it is. 'Boyz' sounds joyous but MIA never quite seems to be able to convey that herself?

that x-post is furiously OTM

yeah, there's a weird psychic gap between the content and the delivery for me, it makes me suspicious to a greater extent than all the artwork/politics/fake dancehall nonsense ever did... already got raised on the old thread by someone complaining about her 'sloganeering' (or words to that effect) but surprised it's not a more common complaint...

then again if you DO say anything disparaging you get ambushed by rabid indie-kids praising her "unique flow" (ala Joanna Newsom) and geographical uniqueitude so it's not really worth the hassle.

it matters less on this new one being vocally, more low-key/quiet strength/mixed further down, and production wise it's thicker and you can get distracted from it all anyway with ease. But I'm still really wincing, embarrassed even, lots of the time, and that's why I'm never sure she's really as sex-on-toast as everyone makes out.

that OTHER sri-lankan fake-dancehall female "rapper", from Jahcoozi, even though I think their music is more mediocre, and often sounds (or sounded) like MIA without the musical color ... don't mind her in the slightest/ MIA? I keep trying to suspend/forget my disbelief and failing totally, I'm back at square one every time.

god I hate how MANY words it takes me to get stuff out all the time ffs

/ot

she does my head in really, I guess if she "brings out the troll" it's because she's hard to like but also hard to ignore... and yeah, I'm probably better off doing the latter.

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

"Diplo has got two tracks on there, Timbaland's got one track, Blaqstarr's got two tracks, but the rest of it, the bulk of it, is built out of me and Switch. 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. I was just kind of taking what I was given, and took the circumstances I was put in. And I wanted to make the most of it. And the only person that believed in it was Switch, and he gave me the freedom to have the space and have thinking time and have the experiences or whatever and came and shared them with me."

This totally has more to do with her frustration with the producers not named Switch, who evidently did NOT care about what she was doing, did NOT care about her situation or her desire for "a totally innovative direction," etc etc etc. Journos are just guilty of constantly name-checking people she evidently feels are doing right by her (and if journos are imply she's their puppet I'd kinda like to see some examples, most pieces seem pretty fawning to me).

evidently feels AREN'T doing right by her, I mean.