M.I.A. - KALA

oh yeah she seems to be intent on annoying the people uncomfortable with her vague poverty tourism schtick on arular even more - she is totally embracing it this time round. shoutouts to "third world democracy" and i'm sure i caught a ref to darfur :o

at least "poverty tourism" and "third world democracy" admits to the existence of poverty and the third world.

hang on i'm a bit drunk but -- woah shit those things exist?!!! fuck!!!!!!!!!

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

Anyone experienced the crazy L£4kproof system this album has going on soulseek? What the dilly-o?

is it like...you queue it up and it says the user is offline?. that's happened to me with songs off the new queens of the stone age.

Okay there's a live performance up on YouTube now - the sound quality is pretty shoddy but I can already tell Jimmy is going to be awesome.

Hustle
Boyz
Bamboo Banger
Jimmy

Also, anyone know who the male MC in the middle of Hustle is?

Oh boy. Can'twaitCan'twaitCan'twait.

her live show just keeps getting worse and worse.

but I can already tell Jimmy is going to be awesome.

ha ha, you've gotta be kidding. sounds like a campy "Dschinghis Khan" cover. ouch.

"Dschinghis Khan" > Half the shit that gets <rep>ped around here.

Holy shit, the cover:

http://www.prefixmag.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/mia_kala_cover.jpg

looks like it was done in ms paint?

Uh-oh (she looks cute with her hair in a bob though).

the 8-bit african-esque font is cool

Also what purports to be a tracklisting:

01 “Bamboo Banga”
02 “Bird Flu”
03 “Boyz”
04 “Jimmy”
05 “Hussel [ft. Afrikan Boy]”
06 “Mango Pickle Down River [ft. the Wilcannia Mob]”
07 “20 Dollar”
08 “World Town”
09 “The Turn”
10 “XR2″
11 “Paper Planes”
12 “Come Around [ft. Timbaland]”

Yeah, 6 sounds like a joke title to me too.

i like 'Come Around', esp. her "dundadadun"isms and that menacing synth bass sound that drifts in towards the end.

no, wilcannia mob are this actual aussie rap crew who had a song called 'downriver', which i guess is gonna be that. (it sampled a digeridoo! it sucked! thanks minna!)

i can't BELIEVE they put afrikan boy on there as well. afrikan boy is this not-even-one-hit-wonder grime guy who raps normal over kanye instrumentals except for this one tune where he done a comedy african voice all about "one day i went to lidl, went to shoplift in lidl". all the supersuper mag type fashion hipsters mustve glommed onto it since.

is everyone gonna let tim get away with that dreaming comparison unmolested? altho actually, if mia ends up busting a mock aussie flow on track 6 he'll be scarily otm...

"there goes a tenner" lol

the video for boyz is lots of fun. i just wish the quicktime video would stop freezing up.

this is pretty nice, too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3q5KQHUjxs

Yeah "Come Around" is an awesome track.

"is everyone gonna let tim get away with that dreaming comparison unmolested? altho actually, if mia ends up busting a mock aussie flow on track 6 he'll be scarily otm..."

Ha ha I wasn't saying those tracks were as good as "The Dreaming" or that MIA was using a dodgy cockney-Australian accent (I love this accent even though it only exists in films and that one Simpsons episode). But tell me that the chorus to "Boys" doesn't sound quite similar to Kate's "SEE THE LIGHTS RAM THROUGH THE GAPS IN THE LAND" vocals.

no, wilcannia mob are this actual aussie rap crew who had a song called 'downriver', which i guess is gonna be that.

not a crew, just some pre-teen country-town kids - none of them had ever rapped before or really had any interest in music, they recorded the one song on the prompting of Morganics, a dude who does lots of community outreach social work theatre activism grant money type stuff. Just this week he's released an album he produced for three homeless Tanzanian brothers.

anyway Diplo went and did some outback outreach work type stuff when he was in .au in February, this is likely a result of that.

nu rave cover! oof.

has this leaked yet? when can us mere mortals hear it?

<I>Wilcannia Mob</I>

Oh, that's truly cool they're getting some MIA love.

haha yeah i knew what u meant tim. and i just listened, and cannot disagree. 'sat in your laps' jungle drumz and proto-pharrell shoulder pops could fit too, if pressed.

i do like 'boyz' as it goes, but mia doesnt feel like the main attraction there. would repeat the old "it's the best basement jaxx in a bit" if it wasnt for the fact that the actual new bjaxx ep is some fucking amazing ruff oldskool hotness!

(i never bother with side 2 of the dreaming usually, mind)

taking it's TIME or what?

RIP. Hope you up there living in a mudhut in heaven now, baby doll

yep.

god that was so awesome

otm

"Jimmy" got played at my wedding.

ftr I like "Jimmy" a lot more now than I did when I first got the album but I'm still very likely to skip it and blast "Hussel" instead.

Loved Kala when it came out, gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars, I think, but did tend to skip over what struck me as less hooky tracks like "Mango Pickle" and "Hussel" (I also never liked "Boys").

Pleasantly surprised to re-listen all the way through recently and now adore most of the stuff I didn't care for initially. There's something offhand and, I don't know, visual (?) about "Mango Pickle" that I just didn't get initially. It feels more like a little scene from a movie than a song or something? Whatever, it really grabbed me this time. Also, the synth riff in "Hussel" kind of rules. "Jimmy" was the one that didn't hold up for me so great, though it's fine. Only one that still annoyed me for some reason (the vocals, I think) was "XR2." But overall the thing blows away the debut, from which I still love three or four tracks and can live without the rest.

the deadpan vocals on "XR2" are kind of my favorite thing about it

the one with the kids is fucking awesome and most of them are better rappers than she is

If there's a better one-line summary of "Kala", then I've yet to read it.

Funny how all the biggest MIA fans don't care much for "Mango Pickle", and vice versa.

i'm a huge m.i.a. fan and i love that track.

so there.

(and talking about whether she's a "good rapper" misses the point by so large a margin that it's not worth discussing.)

true. who gives a shit whether she can rap or not? what's important here is that she's a credible performer/creates an exciting persona/etc. ultimately, what matters is the artifact(s), imo. prioritizing skillz, beats, flow, and all that shit is so '70s prog/fusion-minded it isn't even funny. she's not competing with Nas or Jay-Z, guys.

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Fuck this, I love "Jimmy," especially the part where she strains her voice trying to hit those high notes.

yeah, "Jimmy" was my favorite track when i first heard it. still sounds great too.

Listening to Arular right now and it still sounds great, not tinny or thin at all.

So just to be clear, I do still love Arular; I just love Kala more.

the one with the kids is fucking awesome and most of them are better rappers than she is

never heard the MIA version, did she keep the original beat or just drop the kids vocals onto some Diplo track?

It's the original beat with a couple of extra flourishes dropped on it.

put this on in the studio tonight after hours of mixing etc and it felt really good

lol @ at the studio awkwardness, and timbaland taking m.i.a. to task for not being able to sing harmony:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbE4-TfN82c

also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOBhrnOzwXw

lol @ this ~ diplo: "Been in the studio with M.I.A. working on her new record. It's like Gucci Mane meets Animal Collective"

Roche brothers Roche brothers, Roche brothers Roche brothers

http://villageatriversedge.net/the_community/imgaes/roche_bros.jpg

No idea why anyone feels the need to make an album that sounds like Gucci meets AC, but so be it. Maya's instincts aren't usually wrong. So long as it doesn't end up sounding something like this: Gucci Collective.

You fuckin’ with a leaf house, I’m fuckin’ with a trap house, goofy motherfuckers too fruity like Mickey Mouse

^ this is the only good one imo

don't know what the fuss, stuff like 'Lion In A Coma' isn't that far off previous MIA anyway (aside from the singing).

pretty sure its not like a cover album r anything, soundz like yr typical "like radiohead ON ACID" record hype rhetoric tbh

pretty sure its not like a cover album r anything

Clearly. But the rhetoric is silly! And also, it doesn't sound particularly appealing!

it sounds like diplo is just using two in-vogue acts as signposts

but for what

is she gonna start rapping?

inquiring minds

New track with Rusko. I like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqYdWNVyLiU

Sounds good. She needs to learn not to fill up every space on the song with her voice, tho.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2010/01/mia_fuck_the_ne.php

interesting. that's going to take a couple listens for me to wrap my head around

it's amazing

Beautiful video.

part of me is waiting for reasons not to love her, and that part keeps getting disappointed. good song.

is this her verizon tech support song?

That one's called “I’m Down Like Your Internet Connection" apparently

Anyone at/going to her album playback in Soho? It's starting right now if you're in town.

I really hope that Rusko track isn't evidence of a new direction.

hype hype

― lex pretend, Friday, May 18, 2007 11:21 AM (2 years ago)

holy christ

i am somehow ceaselessly fascinated that time passes

hoos hoos

"hype hype" is such a banger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZHJctcO_wM

(yeah, that's the same sticky on production who did "bad gyal", "your eye too fast", "look pon me" last year, uk funky heads)

friend of mine theother day called funky "big pimpin: the genre"

oh, so i guess she didn't record a bunch of drummers in India for 'Bird Flu' like all those interviews claimed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcQyMmjMrP4

maybe the live drums did end up on 'Boyz', or maybe the recordings weren't usable but made for a better story then "we ended up just using a sample".

nice catch