MIA

racial profiling ethnic cleansing

I like the idea and the message behind the video, but the message probably would have gotten through better with a little less graphic violence.

geir..............otm?

http://stevehickey.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/70srapture.jpg

what was "banana skit" about?

bananas?

it's fun to say banana

true

i always imagined it was like some dis track against dizzee rascal because of that line in "Fix Up Look Sharp" where he says BANAWNAW all like a British person.

That's a stupid idea, but otherwise it's just inscrutable.

lol at that after u being all OCCAMSRAZOR4LIFE on the viking thread

doubt mia would find an east londoner saying banana as remarkable as u do

EFIL4ROZARSMACCO

i dunno, she's a west londoner, which is probably like 5 accent zones away

kind of bummed that i keep getting an error msg when i attempt a "vote for your favorite #miap4k tweet" poll

i've admitted that it's probably a very wrong interpretation, but she opens her critically adored first album with a sketch that makes no sense to me

or anyone? did like everyone in their EMP paper that year talk about how great "banana skit" is because everyone understood it but me?

I think the sense in it is mostly

it's fun to say banana

― dipset infiltrator (zvookster), Tuesday, April 27, 2010 3:41 PM Bookmark

this shit is bananas

ha, I think I was privately thinking "T/S 'B-A-N-A-N-A-S' vs 'BA-NA-NAAAH'" in my head all that year

i think there might actually be a thread to that effect somewhere

talking of pop stars being "activists", amerie is being super-eloquent and passionate about some new arizonan immigration law on twitter right now. where are the cnn articles lauding her for this.

so "banana skit" is an english lesson for refugees in which the practice word is "banana," the fruit so tied to colonialism/imperialism that it spawned the term "banana republic"?

english language/american culture as colonizing force

then again, sometimes a banana is just a banana

some of that too but mostly

it's fun to say banana

― dipset infiltrator (zvookster), Tuesday, April 27, 2010 3:41 PM Bookmark

“I wrote that because when I was at school that was the type of shit that you have to learn first when you’re an immigrant and you get sent to a special school to learn English. And I was always pronouncing everything really badly because the way you say it in Tamil is totally different. I mean, the syllables, the way they come out your mouth is so different: ba-na-na. And that’s how that came about. I just wanted to make quite autobiographical.”

i guess that makes sense? Did all 4000 rock critics who jizzed on the album understand that? Or did they all just blow by the fact that the first 45 seconds of the year's most "important" album kind of made no sense?

Really would like a run down of how critics in 2005 interpreted "banana skit"

there are racial connotations for the term "banana" re: asians, that's where my mind went with it

why does it have to make sense?

there are racial connotations for the term "banana" re: asians

rly??

yes rly

Btw. I've heard considerably better songs by MIA. This sounds like Björk about to be strangled by volcano ash.

think her own explanation p much covers it... also it's a skit not effing frantz fanon

welp, never heard that, in england

xpost

i have to admit this song has been in my head since watching the video.

lex: I'd be willing to wage Amerie is a hell of a lot ~smarter~ than Maya, but her politics are coming from an angle to which people are much more accustomed and is hence much less novel.

btw banana/twinkie:asians::oreo:african americans

xp

"it's just one thing that's got her trippin'" would be a good headline tho

Arular reviews that dont have the word "Banana" in them:

Pitchfork
Stylus
Allmusic
PopMatters
Austin Chronicle
Guardian
Dusted
Paste

Like the most critically acclaimed album of the decade and no one mentioned THE OPENING TRACK

oh ok. well, mia isn't "asian" as in east asian innit so nah bruv not seeing that.

xpost

xp you are seriously stressing about some incredibly minor shit

Christgau did!

Banana Skit" starts the album with her only message: "Get yourself an education."

I'm not stressin. I'm just saying, I had no idea wtf that skit was about and was wondering if the most written-about record of the decade included ppl pretending to know what it meant. And apparently no one dared.

Sri Lanka is south Asian fyi

xp

fucking in the streets was totally otm re banana skit, gj

but whatever I'll take her word for it. Banana is more of a N. American slang term anyway - which would explain why it occurred to me, but my not have been what she intended

xp

may not

that's why he said sri lanka isn't east asian mo

he/she

Shakey, "banana" is like a lost b-side to the album that is racial slurs in america

figured she was kickin it with diplo in the studio and he told her that joke about beethoven's favorite fruit

ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring banana phone