ALBUM REVIEWS |
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Her background puts the ghetto perspective of most hip-hop artists into context, so her use of violent imagery is justified by her experience. Almost every track on ‘Arular’ is strewn with battle metaphors and resistance slogans, as M.I.A. tackles subjects like war, prostitution and urban life with her unique perspective. This is rebel music delivered with passion and determination. Her flow is a torrent of words, spraying like machine gun fire in a sharp, aggressive style. But she’s got a wicked sense of humour as well, such as the line “could it be that me and he / are tighter than R Kelly in his teens” (‘U.R.A.Q.T.’). If her words are mainly a part of her Eastern past, the music is a diametrically opposed absorption of Western influences. West London that is. ‘Arular’ is alive with the distilled UK music of Jamaica and Brazil. The sounds of the Rio favalas, generally known as funk carioca, appears on ‘Bucky Done Gun’ and ‘Fire Fire’, and she ties the noisy shanty funk in with the dirty beats of London’s grime scene. The middle of the album sees a trio of superb tracks all bearing the hallmarks of the Caribbean. ‘Amazon’, featuring production from Richard X, is soaked in the heavy sounds of the jungle, ‘Bingo’ has kettle drums and shouty vocals, while ‘Hombre’ is carried along by an elating tribal chanting chorus. If this sounds all very pleasant and easy to listen to, don’t be fooled. M.I.A. assumes Public Enemy’s attitude to music as a form of terror and ‘Arular’ is a noisy, intense experience. ‘Bucky Done Gun’ stops and starts with disjointed beats and a great horn steal from the Rocky theme, while ‘Pull Up the People’ is packed with sci-fi effects and bleeps, like Missy Elliott before she stopped making good music to concentrate on unfunny television commercials. But like both those artists, M.I.A. still makes music to dance to. ‘Arular’ may be awash with blood and brutal imagery and every tune packs a sucker punch, but she always finds the pop gem lurking within the fierce façade. words: Colm Larkin Have your say here |
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If
you based your musical opinions on biography only, M.I.A. would
easily rank as the most interesting. Hailing from Sri Lanka, Maya
Arulpragasam’s father is active in the Tamil Tigers, the separatist
group whose violent acts terrorised the island nation for many years
until their recent cease-fire. As her father became increasingly
involved in the struggle, M.I.A. and the rest of her family fled
to India and eventually ended up in West London.