Cultural baggage

>> The U.K.’s M.I.A. burns up the dancefloor
and borrows the sound and spirit of
Bollywood, British punk, Indian tribesmen,
outback Aboriginies and immigrant MCs
on her new album, Kala

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“Shapes, colours, Africa, street, power, bitch, nu world and brave” is how M.I.A. has described her new album, Kala. It’s abstract and off-the-cuff, but it’s a fair summation of a record partly put together in the style of folk-music field recordings (Africa is actually one of the few continents that wasn’t on her itinerary) and stacked to the rim with stark sounds, delirious beats and voices raised to represent the third world, and the first-generation immigrants building their future in the “nu world.” Just don’t call it “world music.”

“I’d say I make music about the world,” says M.I.A., stepping away from a soundcheck in France, “but it’s more like muse music than world music, whatever that means. You can’t just put over five billion people’s music in one category, and it’s usually the least progressive stuff that gets through. You’ll never hear the cool shit, the direct street music, that way.”

War child

M.I.A., aka Maya Arulpragasam, is part of the first-generation nation—she recently told Pitchfork that her journey from living in a mud hut to “shouting in front of a disco” took only 15 years, whereas black America struggled for three generations to rise from slavery to “singing about fucking Bentleys.” Born in London to Sri Lankan parents in 1977, she and her parents relocated to the old country when she was six months old, living briefly in India and eventually fleeing Sri Lanka’s civil war. The family, minus the father and plus two new siblings, returned to England when M.I.A. was around 10. It was only then that she learned to speak English, in the special-needs classes she attended at school as well as the rap and ragga she heard at home, in London’s infamously dreary council estates.

She went on to study fine arts and exhibit her paintings, depictions of Sri Lankan war in chaotic spray-paint and stencils. The show was nominated for a prize, Jude Law bought a piece and M.I.A.’s aesthetic caught the eye of Justine Frischmann, then-singer for Elastica. M.I.A. wound up designing the cover of the band’s second album, The Menace, documenting their American tour and directing a video. Elastica’s opening act was Canada’s own Peaches, whose lewd, rude, one-woman electro act was just starting to boil over in Berlin, and who can be credited for introducing M.I.A. to the Roland MC-505 Groovebox. Before long, she was using it to make her own beats, and with assistance from Frischmann, mash-up pioneer Richard X, former Pulp bassist Steve Mackey and
Philadelphia’s Diplo (M.I.A.’s boyfriend at the time), she made her mark on the world in 2005 with Arular, an album that rolls electro, baile funk, dancehall, hip hop and ragga into one lo-tech assault.

Parents, politics and punk

M.I.A. has called Kala her feminine album—it’s named after her mother, and features flashes of nostalgia such as “Jimmy,” a cover of a Bollywood track she danced to semi-professionally as a child.

Arular, however, is her father’s namesake. Elements of the album’s lyrics and artwork refer to Sri Lankan militants the Tamil Tigers, a guerrilla group that he joined in the ’70s—they’re said to have popularized the suicide bomb, and are widely regarded in the West as terrorists. Arular’s fusion of dancefloor fodder and foreign worldview moved some writers to praise M.I.A.’s “booty politics” and “revolutionary chic.” Meanwhile, MTV disapproved of her second single “Sunshowers” because it mentions the PLO (with whom her father trained at one time), and she was denied a U.S. work visa for most of 2006, keeping her from the producers she meant to record with, and from her pied-à-terre apartment in Brooklyn.

Whether or not the visa rejection was politically motivated, it was fortuitous. Instead of working primarily in the U.S., M.I.A. recorded in Jamaica and Trinidad, and captured the sounds of Aboriginal kids in Australia, traditional drummers in India and MC Afrikan Boy in London—his solo single “Lidl,” about shoplifting at the immigrants’ supermarket, will be the first release on M.I.A.’s own label, Zig-Zag.

U.K. producer Switch co-helmed a chunk of Kala in the aforementioned exotic locales, and when M.I.A. finally made it to Baltimore, she worked on a pair of songs with Blaqstarr. One of them was “Paper Planes,” which prominently samples the Clash’s “Straight to Hell,” and given the global sounds and concerns on their later albums (and subsequent solo work), it’s likely that the surviving members appreciate what M.I.A.’s up to, and that Joe Strummer would have approved.

“I do feel like a loner doing this, and I think punk is born out of a certain spirit that relates to that,” she says. “You have to feel like nobody on the planet understands you, and you have to have teenage angst, basically, even after you grow up.”

A-holes and k-holes

M.I.A. identifies with the ethos of the Clash, but not with the corporate jock-rock that passes for punk today. Likewise, she’s conflicted about contemporary hip hop, and finds the mainstream American scene somewhat problematic. Her objections don’t arise from the genre’s depictions of women (though, like Peaches, she’s eager to turn the tables, having recently hired 100 males of the species to shake it in the video for “Boyz”), but from the treatment and reception of female artists.

Vibe recently threw some harsh criticism Kala’s way, making the hip hop mag almost the only above-the-radar publication or Web site to run a really negative review, and that’s rubbing M.I.A. the wrong way. Moreover, her recording session with renowned Southern crew Three Six Mafia was aborted after it became clear that they expected “sexy” material, and she was disappointed by her experience with Timbaland, who’s apparently more drawn to the likes of Celine Dion these days. “Come Around” is their one collaboration on Kala, though there was initially talk of having Timbaland produce the album in its entirety, perhaps reinventing M.I.A. à la Nelly Furtado.

“I considered it for, like, a minute,” M.I.A. admits. “But I think it might be impossible for me to make that transition, with my lifestyle and the people I have around me.”

Perhaps she’s referring to her Polish buddy Shemko, who recently cut and coloured her hair under the influence of ketamine, aka Special K. With friends like these, who needs fame?

Pop idle

“That’s not why I came into music,” she explains. “When I was making Arular, I was thinking, ‘This is what I wanna say at this moment ’cause I’m a civilian and I feel confused, and my ideas could be half-baked, but these are the issues that concern my headspace.’ And then, with Kala, the situations and the circumstances of my life were just so fucked up that I was, like, ‘Fine, I’ll make this album about the importance of making art,’ which we don’t have enough of in music right now because there are more brave businessmen than brave artists. If that’s the only thing this album is gonna go down for, and if this is the last bit of music I ever make, I’d much rather it be about fighting for the need to have your personal say or your personal vision.”

Breaking up with Diplo, being barred from the States and facing the pressures of the “difficult second album” (for a major U.S. label, no less) made for a very turbulent 2006. But it also produced Kala, and a work ethic that’s become M.I.A.’s manifesto.

“I’m at a point in my life where I need to live what I make,” she says. “If everyone, now and again, took six months out from blogging to go and live something that you make, that would keep shit interesting. Otherwise, eventually we’re just gonna kill all creativity. I need to work like this, it’s all I have to justify my life for the last 18 months, and if Interscope hates it, the press hates it, the people hate it, then fuck it, I don’t give a shit. I lived it.”

Headlining the MEG stage at day two
of Osheaga at Parc Jean-Drapeau on
Sunday, Sept. 9, 1 p.m., $79.50
($150 for both days)

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG,
LORRAINE CARPENTER
and JOHNSON CUMMINS

Having proven itself a well-oiled machine, and arguably the most courteous and considerate of music fests, with last year’s inaugural edition, the two-day cavalcade of cool tunes, good eats and neat art that is Montreal’s Osheaga event returns with an equally impressive line-up this weekend. Despite heavy hitters Amy Winehouse and Peter, Björn & John having dropped off the bill (PB&J due to an MTV award engagement, Winehouse due to… well, guess), the spread of acts on five stages still includes not only our cover subject M.I.A. but notables like Feist, Interpol, Macy Gray, Arctic Monkeys and of course Smashing Pumpkins. Local artists get their fair shake too—check out Patrick Watson, the Besnard Lakes, Sixtoo, Plaster and plenty more.

That’s hardly all, though. Beyond the familiar names is any number of neat up-and-comers, talents that merit tapping into before they blow up big. Here are a few highlights worth dragging your ass across the festival grounds to catch:

Fucked Up: Adding ballast to the bill this year are these Torontonian punk rockers. Having earned a reputation with their fierce live show and numerous seven-inches, Fucked Up really turned heads with their first foray away from the vinyl frontier, last year’s much lauded Worlds Apart. You can never predict what will happen at a Fucked Up show, but chaos is a pretty sure bet. At the Scène des Arbres stage, Sat., Sept. 8, 7 p.m.

Krief: Dears guitarist Patrick Krief writes beautiful ballads with a pop heart and classic rock balls, as heard on such delightful songs as “We’re All Whores” from his indie EP, Take It or Leave It, featuring Andre Bendahan (bass), Roberto Piccioni (keyboards) and Dears drummer George Donoso III. At the Scène des Arbres stage, Sun., Sept. 9, 3 p.m.

Ohbijou: From Toronto by way of Brantford, this septet makes music that oozes sweet and slow like molasses, its bittersweet confections of stringed instruments, keys, horns, percussion and girlish vocals lying somewhere between folksy balladry, orchestral pop and film noir. On the Scène des Arbres stage, Sat., Sept. 8, 2 p.m.

Maxime Robin: Clearly a compulsive crate-digger, Trois-Rivières’s Robin cobbles his intricately crafted compositions together from a ludicrously diverse spread of reactivated vinyl oddities. The moods he achieves cover a similarly expansive spectrum, though mirth generally wins out over melancholy. A worthwhile workout for your aural differentiation faculties. At the Salon des Arts stage, Sat., Sept. 8, 8 p.m.

Santogold: Bed-Stuy-based Santi White carries a lot over from column A—her former band Stiffed, a punky-reggae riot—to column B, her solo but hardly solitary steez. White has songwriting chops, and power and possibility in her pipes, both applied as she zigzags across the musical map on collabs with Spank Rock, Switch, Radioclit, Diplo, the late, lamented Disco D and cats from Bad Brains and Steel Pulse. A definite must. At the MEG stage, Sat., Sept. 8, 4:45 p.m.

Sunday Sinners: One of Montreal’s most sultry and soulful rock bands, the Sunday Sinners are sure to give the big-name out-of-towners a run for their money. The band is indeed top shelf, but it’s singer Jenna Roker’s sweet, raspy croon that will melt your heart. Although old-school R&B is definitely their touchstone, they add more depth with their current psychedelic flirtations. At the Scène des Arbres stage, Sun., Sept. 9, 4 p.m.

Jamie T: Recalling at times Billy Bragg and Big Audio Dynamite, certainly the Streets and often enough the kid you’d vote most likely to pass out face down on the street, this 21-year-old, acoustic-bass-toting Brit-du-jour has mastered the poetry of the piss-up in a South London vernacular. At the Scène de la Montagne stage, Sat., Sept. 8, 2:15 p.m.

Thunderheist: Recently transplanted from here to Toronto, this duo live up to both ends of their name. Beat wrangler Grahmzilla busts out ground-shaking bounce as badass as anything B-more or baile funk, while MC Isis steals the show with sharp rhymes and serious stage presence. You’d be a fool to miss this. A fool! At the MEG stage, Sat., Sept. 8, 2 p.m.

At Parc Jean-Drapeau on Saturday
and Sunday, Sept. 8–9, 1 p.m., $79.50
($150 for both days). For more info,
go to www.osheaga.com