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[by Mo Herms]

On 9/11/2001, I talked on the phone with my mother after finding out that one of my best friends, who worked in the south tower, was alive. My mom was not terribly helpful. “Well, I hate to say this, but now you know how the rest of the world lives. These sorts of things happen in most other countries every day.” My mother was born and raised in Colombia , where her family was once smuggled out of the country to Ecuador in an avocado truck because her father had not picked a political affiliation and each side considered him a traitor. Their farm was raided and their home was burnt to the ground.

M.I.A. is bringing that same sort of message to the States with Arular , wrapped up in sexy dance beats and electro hip hop grooves. "You could be a follower, but who's your leader/ Break that circle, it could kill ya,” she raps on her self titled track, the most clearly political, hidden at the end of the album. M.I.A.'s personal history is an integral part of the music, as it is with most artists. She was inspired by her surroundings, which were as diverse and wild as her music has turned out to be. Born in Sri Lanka , her father was a Tamil Tiger (considered a terrorist at home) and remained a mystery to her for most of her youth. The family was relocated to a shanty in India for a time, then back to Sri Lanka , and eventually out to the refugee ghettoes of West London . There she watched her house get broken into routinely, was spit on for being brown, and became obsessed with hip hop.

Arular , named after her father, is a beautiful mess of hip hop, dancehall, bhangra, baile funk and electro. It's primitive in the sense of her sound, which is simple yet multilayered, and somewhat repetitive, but also achingly earnest for these same reasons. It's accessible and believable. She pulls the standard hip hop tricks: namechecking herself and her influences (Missy Elliott & Timbaland, the P.L.O.), throwing in little “skits” between songs (one about her “freedom fighting dad” and another about learning how to pronounce the word “banana”) and creating beats so big they could sink a low-rider. Her voice conveys both innocence and sexiness, making her grooves all the more sultry. However, when the music stops on “Galang” and her sing-a-long yodel starts up… “Ya ya heeeeey – ho oh eey ooohh…” It's straight out of the jungle.

There are a lot of moments like that on this album, when one hears rhythms and sounds you just don't expect from a Roland synthesizer and a girl from London . And many people may be too busy dancing to notice the lyrics at first… The tropical sensual ness of “Amazon” breaks down with “blindfolded under homemade lanterns somewhere in the Amazon they're holding me ransom,” and the extremely dancey “10$” is a rant against teenage prostitution. But M.I.A. really pulls no punches on a dreamy rap called “Sunshowers,” which lulls the listener in with the beats, and then beats you up with the violence of her surroundings: “ Semi-9 and snipered him, on that wall they posted him -
They cornered him and then just murdered him… He told them he didn't know them, he wasn't there, they didn't know him. They showed him a picture then - Ain't that you with the Muslims?”

For whatever reason, the American public is loving M.I.A. Whether it is because her music sounds just as fun following up J.J. Fad as it does mixing with Peaches and LCD Soundsystem, or perhaps the primal ness of it appeals on a deeper level. Or maybe because the reality of the United States is that there are more and more people from all over the world leaving their traces on our collective culture, and M.I.A. has tapped into that with her protest world music and people are ready to hear it. Regardless, M.I.A. has the need to convey a message, and the need to make people dance, and she seems to be succeeding at both.

July 15, 2005

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