Lorna Irvine reviews the controversial artist's fourth album.
M.I.A, aka English/Sri Lankan artist Maya Arulpragasam, is one of the most divisive figures in pop today: uncompromising, political, gobby and sexy on her own terms—an A and R marketing man's nightmare, in short. She doesn't kiss corporate butt or settle down, and even upstaged Madonna on stage at the Super Bowl last July by flipping the bird and swearing—something that may have once been unthinkable.
This, her fourth album, named after the Hindi goddess of words and music, may have dodgy moments (Come Walk With Me is anaemic, commercial balladeering of the worst kind), but the Bhangra-tinged title track, with its rabble-rousing juddering call to arms in the global village, "BALI, MALI, CHILE, MALAWI!'' makes us remember why we fell in love with her- just like her hit, The Clash-sampling Paper Planes with its machine gun fire and *KERR-CHIIING!* on the chorus, it is in-your-face polemic. Don't get that on a Rihanna single, do you?
It's mostly not much of a departure from her signature style, sprinkled with world music strings and fragmented hip-hop percussion, but as she set the template many have either copied or tried to emulate (Beyonce's Run The World is undeniably great, but rips her off wholesale), we can only wait for other artists to catch her up. Neither is she very consistent, yet her worst is better than many other's best. We need her, in short, more than ever.
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