Album review: M.I.A.'s MAYA album

There are so many ways to say “I love you,” and if you’re singing, it can be hard to say anything else. Pop stars are our love machines, expressing desires people are otherwise too uptight or disconnected to put into words. And women artists can hardly find a way beyond that role. Springsteen sings for the working stiff, and Zack de la Rocha slaughters bulls on parade; but when Lady Gaga crafts a commentary on human trafficking, she still has to call it “Bad Romance.”

So, what if you’re a female artist who puts politics first? And then, what happens when you start to feel the muscle that is your heart?

Maya Arulpragasam, a.k.a. M.I.A., is in that nearly singular circumstance. The UK-born Sri Lankan war child turned agitprop-loving art-school kid achieved critical success and some popular renown with a global mash-up sound that cast her as ultimate street urchin --  "Robin Hoodrat," as the critic Jessica Hopper called her in her perceptive "/\/\/\Y/\" review.

Spitting slogans and throwing beat bombs, M.I.A. danced like a rapper, not a single lady. Her lyrics trumpeted self-confidence and spoke for others' struggles, rarely dwelling on tender emotions. She always looked great, but never bared too much skin. Her androgynous charisma, in fact, was the source of her breakthrough, when two different films, "Pineapple Express" and "Slumdog Millionaire," used her song "Paper Planes" as background to the antics of delinquent boys.

In the midst of M.I.A.'s rise, though, a couple of things happened: She started her own record label, the Interscope Records imprint N.E.E.T., getting into the music industry in earnest. And she met her future husband Benjamin Brewer, son of Warner Music Group CEO and Seagram's magnate Edgar Bronfman Jr., a guy with a different set of issues than M.I.A. may be used to confronting. The two had a son, Ikhyd, last year.

"/\/\/\Y/\" responds to these changes, and it feels like a serious artist's sometimes tentative but very promising step toward a broader vision of herself. In its 12 tracks, M.I.A. explores both what it means to serve as a sexual/romantic ideal in the Beyonce way, and what happens when a self-consciously political artist like herself confronts the sentimental streak deep within.

Are the fans M.I.A., or just skeptical? Ticket sales for Hard L.A. said to be 'slow'

 
Another day, and more tales of a beleaguered concert season emerge. This time, its former teen sensations the Jonas Brothers, whose summer tour was shuffled to include more international dates, yet about a dozen fewer North American ones (the act's local appearance in Irvine was shifted from Sept. 23 to Sept. 19). 

But there is one instance in which slow ticket sales might put the minds of local officials at ease. Ticket buys for M.I.A.'s headlining July 17 appearance at Hard L.A., slated for a 36-acre plot of land at the Los Angeles State Historic Park, which is just east of Chinatown, are trending far below the capacity of 25,000 people, according to event organizers. 

The July 17 concert, also featuring noise act Sleigh Bells, African rap act Die Antwoord and hip-hop group N.E.R.D., is the city's first major electronic event to follow June's Electric Daisy Carnival. That two-day dance event drew 185,000 people to the Coliseum and adjoining Exposition Park but came under fire after reports of injuries and gate-crashing, as well as the tragic news that a 15-year-old girl died of a suspected drug overdose after attending the event. L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky went so far as to call for a rave moratorium.

The fallout, as noted in this weekend's Calendar, has brought heightened attention on Hard L.A.

"There's a concern, and I've heard from multiple agencies," said James Valdez, a state park ranger and the lead coordinator for events in the Los Angeles sector who will be overseeing Hard L.A. "Will we reevaluate our plans and logistics? Yes. In light of Electric Daisy, we will increase our numbers all the way around."

Cut from the story, however, was the off-handed comment from Valzez that "there may be more staff than people" at Hard L.A. Exaggeration or not, Gary Richards, a veteran dance music promoter who is hosting Hard L.A., noted in a separate interview that "we could use some more ticket sales."

Twelve-year-old Ian Hamrick on his gruesome death in M.I.A.'s 'Born Free' video

The most gobsmacking five seconds in a music video in 2010 happens at 6:51 in M.I.A.’s infamously gruesome clip for “Born Free.” If you’ve seen it, you know the moment -- a crew of young redheads is forced onto a bus, dragged to a field in the desert, and promptly shown that things are about to get much worse.

At that instant, one slender, moppet-haired adolescent meets a fate that takes the “Born Free” clip from a police state dystopia to a level of grim violence that might make Tarantino flinch.

That young man is 12-year-old Angeleno Ian Hamrick.  Few actors earn their first break by getting shot in the head by a paramilitary squad, but Hamrick is awfully level and contemplative about his small, shocking part.

“M.I.A. wanted to show people what an ethnic cleansing looked like,” Hamrick said in a phone interview Thursday. “She wanted to show that it can happen in any country, not just a place like Iraq. Just because this is America doesn’t mean horrible things don’t happen here.”

Hamrick got the call for the clip, directed by Romain Gavras, after an agency called for redheaded boys for a music video, and put them through a fairly grueling audition where they were screamed at, batted around a room and told that things would escalate considerably from there. Hamrick was excited to work with CGI (even CGI depicting his own exploding skull), but soon began exploring the deeper wells of metaphor in video, especially from his vantage point in an adolescent culture inculcated with violent media from childhood. 

Music videos make a comeback -- and Los Angeles directors are at the forefront

"Why Don't You Love Me" - Beyoncé from Beyoncé on Vimeo.

As proven on this blog and many others last week, music videos like M.I.A.'s violent tale of ginger genocide are one of the few elements of the music business that still has the power to stir conversation. In an article this week, New York Magazine tracks how the medium recovered from its early aughts slump. We'll give you a little hint: Something called YouTube is largely responsible. That, and OK Go.

It's been a long time since MTV lived up to its name. Some time along the way, music videos went from the buzz bins to the trash bins, with tireless doses of reality TV programming instead dominating the airwaves. (The members of "Jersey Shore" didn't get famous for their gel-dependent hairstyles and accents alone -- MTV simply aired it nonstop.)

But, the article posits, now the music video has found a good home on YouTube and other outlets like Vimeo, where viewers can watch the latest Lady Gaga eye candy over and over again -- her "Telephone" video currently has at least 28,650,571 views on YouTube -- without sitting through commercials for Axe body spray.

M.I.A. makes her stance utterly clear with 'Born Free' video [UPDATED]

M.I.A. protested in the all-caps mode she favors when the rattling, violent video for her brash new single "Born Free" was pulled from YouTube early Tuesday morning. After using Twitter to blame her record label and then retracting that accusation -- YouTube itself removed the short film by French director Romain Gavras for its graphic content, which included a child being shot in the head and a young man being blown up by a land mine -- she simply declared, "BOOOOOOOOO" and provided a link to the "Born Free" video on her own website.

Her tweet was more childish than it was constructive, but the transnational hip-hop star's decision to team with Gavras and release a video that clearly connected to the history of political filmmaking is no rash impulse. With "Born Free," M.I.A. lets her growing cult of fans know that she has no intention of softening her message to court the mainstream.

For those who haven't seen the clip, it's a docudrama-style depiction of American military forces rounding up members of a targeted minority in an unnamed city, taking them to the desert and executing them. Much-discussed reference points include the Peter Watkins 1971 countercultural film "Punishment Park" and, because the raided people have red hair, the South Park episode "Ginger Kids," which satirized the idea of targeted minority groups by putting redheads in the victim role.

In fact, Gavras will soon release his directorial debut, "Redheads," which takes the plot of the M.I.A. video feature-length and promises to be both ultra-violent and free of Kenny jokes. His work with the filmmaking collective Kourtrajme, which he co-founded, and on videos for other artists (most notably the French electronic duo Justice, whose song "Stress" became the backdrop to Gavras' blunt depiction of Paris gang violence) lands smack in the middle of what's long been fruitful ground for political filmmakers, including Gavras' own father, Constantinos "Costa" Gavras: the killing field where dramas of racial prejudice, institutional control and minority resistance are enacted.

Snap Judgment: M.I.A. drops new track, "Born Free" (and gets Suicide paid)

Anyone who sniveled at M.I.A. for biting the better part of "Straight To Hell" for her biggest hit to date should probably be sitting down for new her single. "Born Free" consists of this, and this alone: some trashy drum samples, a fuzzed out airhorn, and the almost the entirety of Suicide's "Ghost Rider. " Somewhere Alan Vega and Martin Rev just decided to treat themselves to cochlear implants from the royalties.

M.I.A.'s cred-building sample savvy here is uncontestable, and the two bands share an ear for deadpanning over gangrenous synths and cheap drum machines. But as a song, "Born Free" feels like the teaser it is. It's one good idea tossed off with zero ambition toward structure or development, more like intriguing mixtape fodder than any statement of purpose for her forthcoming record. M.I.A. sounds great, though, echoed out to oblivion while repurposing lyrical punk bromides from the Misfits and idle rap boasts like "I don't want to talk about money, 'cause I got it."

M.I.A.'s been riding hard for her new proteges Sleigh Bells lately, and this cut suggests she's been paying attention to their gained-out production style and boundless yet directionless energy. A whole album of this would be taxing, and could play against M.I.A.'s strengths in sashaying all over daffy backbeats. As four minutes of vinegary circle-pit fodder, however, it'll do kindly. But let this also be an occasion to go shovel a bunch of your money at Suicide, who deserve it and hopefully just won a few new fans here.

-- August Brown 

M.I.A.: Unlike Lady Gaga, I won't be 'blindfolded with naked men feeding me apples'

Never one to put her poison pen down for long, the agit-pop rapper M.I.A. has turned her ire toward Lady Gaga in a recent NME interview (unfortunately, unavailable in original form online). In it, she tosses off probably the best one-line takedown of Gaga yet put to print.

How important are image and visuals to your music?

Very. But it’s not like “Haus of Gaga” (laughs). Me blindfolded with naked men feeding me apples and ....

It comes as part of a longer, must-read ethering centered around  a popular criticism of Gaga’s music: that her fashion sense seems to far exceed her songs in terms of future-thinking ambition. 

“None of her music’s reflective of how weird she wants to be or thinks she is. She models herself on Grace Jones and Madonna, but the music sounds like 20-year-old Ibiza music, you know? She’s not progressive, but she’s a good mimic…. That’s a talent and she’s got a great team behind her, but she’s the industry's last stab at making itself important - saying, ‘You need our money behind you, the endorsements, the stadiums.’ Respect to her, she’s keeping a hundred thousand people in work, but my belief is: Do It Yourself.”

In New York magazine’s earlier, fantastic profile of Gaga, one of the more intriguing subplots is how much shape-shifting Gaga went through to become a star known for morphing – from grungy rocker to drum-machine-driven hope of Def Jam to the kind of arena-trance pop that finally clicked. The story suggests that the whole point of Gaga is that others project ideas onto her charisma and taste, but that her charisma and taste are as flexible as her desire for fame and influence requires.

Live review: M.I.A. at Lot 613

There was a guy wandering around M.I.A.’s last-minute “secret” show (presented by her new label N.E.E.T.) last night wearing a T-shirt emblazoned “I (heart) M.I.A.” without a shred of irony. While the cool kids might have snickered when he passed by, it was an apt and appropriate sentiment.

There are precious few artists who can galvanize such a significant portion of L.A.’s hipster elite (on a “school night,” no less) to trek deep into downtown Los Angeles at $25 a pop. But there they were, cooling their heels in line for an extra hour when doors didn’t open until 10 p.m. instead of the advertised 9 p.m. And then there was another wait.

No disrespect to the cavalcade of DJs and emcees that tried to keep the crowd’s attention, but it was akin to adults talking in an old “Peanuts” cartoon. People did not get all gussied up on a Wednesday night to hear DJ Mano play pumped-up mixes of Gen Y classics like Bell Biv Devoe’s “Poison.” Hollywood Holt made an admirable attempt at hyping the crowd, but chants for M.I.A. only increased.

When M.I.A. did finally mount the stage a few minutes after 1 a.m. (and not a moment too soon — even hardcore fans were on the verge of mutiny), there was the expected pandemonium, the horizon turning into a forest of hands, cameras and cellphones. Rushing through songs like “XR2” and “Bamboo Banga,” from her 2007 album “Kala,” and rocking her new favorite accessory -- a huge ‘80s mobile phone -- M.I.A. introduced a dancer called “White Boy” to bust some moves for the crowd.

By the time she wrapped it up with the obligatory run through “Paper Planes” (which she kept referring to as “Where’s My Money?”), barely half an hour had passed.

While some grumbled about the late hour and the brief set, there’s something to be said for still being able to see M.I.A. up close and personal in a Los Angeles warehouse. Her next two California shows are at the massive Street Scene in San Diego, and the equally large Outside Lands in San Francisco this coming weekend.

-- Photo and post by Scott T. Sterling

M.I.A. takes it back to the underground with last-minute Wednesday night gig

Don’t let it ever be said that M.I.A. is a conventional pop star. M.I.A., whose  last area performance as one of the 2009 Coachella headliners was considered a calamitous affair, has just announced a last-minute live show somewhere in downtown Los Angeles for Wednesday  evening.

Presented by M.I.A’s N.E.E.T. recording label, a mere 500 tickets for the show will go on sale today at 1 p.m. at the Turntable Lab record store at 424½  N. Fairfax Ave. in Los Angeles.

Tickets are $25 with a $2 service charge. There is a limit of two tickets per person, and all sales are cash only. The event is also 21 and over. Tickets will not be available at the door, with the location released on the day of the event. More information can be found at danceright.net.

Turntable Lab is not allowing any lining up in front of the store before 12:30 p.m., so no morning camp-outs. In the meantime, good luck.

-- Scott T. Sterling

Photo: M.I.A. at 2009 Coachella Music Festival. Credit: Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times