In praising M.I.A.’s album Kala earlier this year, I compared it to a sore tooth that you can’t help probing with your tongue. It’s loud, wild and unnerving but I find myself drawn to it again and again.
That’s not the sort of quote that ends up in a magazine ad, I know. But then, the sort of people who are into M.I.A. probably don’t care what a 35 year-old white guy has to say about the album anyway.
Her music is ‘world music’ in the truest sense… it is of and about people and cultures from all over the globe. M.I.A. (her real name is Mathangi Arulpragasam, so you can see why the moniker is necessary) split her childhood between London, Sri Lanka and India and that natural eclecticism shines through her every note.
Kala feels like something brand-new — a dance album with a social and political conscience that sounds like it’s boiling up from the streets of a favela. M.I.A. could just as easily be Grammy’s Best New Artist or the leader of a massive uprising… her music seems alive, more important than record deals and parental advisory stickers.
That said, her biggest hit, ‘Paper Planes,’ only made a mark when it was featured in the Pineapple Express trailer. I guess eventually everybody has to play the game.
Meet Me In Montauk 
I always try to leave the sore tooth alone myself, in order to avoid the inevitable trip to the dentist for as long as possible. I only got through the first 1:10 seconds of this song just now, not because I hate it but because it’s just a bit too -much- at 6:00 a.m. I’ll try it again after I’ve had my second cup of coffee. You say this is the hit, but I’m more intrigued by the song that could lead uprisings. Are any of those available on You Tube?
(And thanks for teaching me a new word. I’d never heard of a “favela” before.)
Here’s one:
Or this:
I don’t necessarily mean she is inciting an uprising in her lyrics (though there might be a bit of that) but more providing a soundtrack for one.
I kinda like this tune, but it reminds me of something–maybe on a soundtrack for a movie?
I didn’t see Pineapple express or the trailer
Well, first, let’s get the prefunctories out of the way….adding “favela” to the list of pretentious words.
Okay, now to the song…I suppose one (like me) might say that a 35 year old white guy living in Boynton Beach, Florida listening to this music is pretentious as well. But, since I know Clay well enough to know that he is not pretentious, I will just chalk this up to more of his eclectic taste. Actually, I’m kinda digging the song–nice sound. Maybe Clay and I will take a trip to a favela to get the total experience. And I’m sure the 2 of us won’t stick out in the crowd at all:)
So now the use of a foreign-language word is pretentious?!
Peggy, it looks like the song is on the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, too, but I don’t know if you’ve seen that one yet.
no, but I did see the trailer, maybe that’s where I heard it! Thanks.
er….yes, especially one that is not commonly known to the English speaking world. Did you really think you could just slip that word in without me calling you out on it?
I see a worldly vocabulary as a plus, fine sir, not something worthy of ridicule. I said good day!
Yes, a worldly vocabulary is a plus, but when you are writing to an audience in the casual manner of a blog and know, or should know, that you are using a 25 cent word that the readers probably don’t know, it is pretentious not to at least give some recognition to the use of the word, either with a “look it up:)” or an actualy definition. To not do so, and then get defensive when somebody calls you out for pulling out the 25 cent word is rather disingenuous.
Happy Birthday to you 🙂
I find it intriguing that Ms. MIA is sparking an uprising right here on the blog 😉
While I don’t mind at all the casual dropping of a word with which I’m not familiar (such as “favela”) by one of my favorite bloggers, I do agree with Dana’s point that it would be a thoughtful gesture on the blogger’s part to at least offer a wink and a nod to the fact that such a word is being used, when he likely can guess that most of his readers will not immediately recognize it. That said, I was debating with Dana yesterday that any word could fall into that category. He would casually use the word kibbutz, despite the fact that many people would not recognize it, and his assumption that they would demonstrates his own cultural bias.
Perhaps our dear blogger assumes everyone has seen City of God and/or has a familiarity with the cultural lingo of Brazil. Regardless, I (snipe away, Dana darling) am happy to be a bit less ignorant today than I was yesterday morning thanks to a habit of reading this blog.
Keep on educating us, Clay. We’re the better for it.
Finally got to check out those links. Yup, I like both of those songs quite a bit. Guess I’m more the uprising type than the ganja smoking type 😉
Vous Dana vraiment mettre à sa place, Amy! Good show, vous! Honnêtement, comment pouvez-vous encore rester marié à un tel RUBE ignorants?
Rappelez-vous toujours, je suis ici pour vous si vous souhaitez que l’envoi de troglodyte.
Merci 🙂
I think it would be obnoxious to add a parenthetical definition after any word that some readers might not know. I don’t see that sort of thing in magazines or newspapers.
The truth is, I pretty much assume I’m the last person to find out most things, so I figure everybody else was using ‘favela’ in general conversation years before I learned what it meant!
Just came home from Slumdog Millionaire, where “Paper Planes” gets some prominent screen time. Thanks for introducing me to it 🙂 (the film is probably a tad too intense for Fiona, though 😉