M.I.A. is having an identity crisis. Not one of those ones that find a familiar artist taking her music into brash and, at the very least, intriguing musical territories, but more along the lines of your polo-sporting, Young-Republican little brother coming home with a fistful of Minor Threat records, barking “This shit is my jam now, bro!”
I’m in no place to call M.I.A. disingenuous, but goddamn, it’s hard not to. On the one hand, we have a politically-charged, world-sensible, and angry M.I.A; on the other, a self-obsessed, trend-drunk, and unpalatably weird M.I.A. Both find space in the spotlight on her latest effort, Maya [stylized /\/\/\Y/\], but like a club at closing time, the light reveals many things better kept dancing drunk in the dark.
A few weeks ago, the New York Times published a heavy-hitting profile of M.I.A. that sparked all kinds of controversy from both participants in the story. Writer Lynn Hirschberg crafted an image of M.I.A. as a politi-poser of sorts, claiming her support of the rebel Tamil Tigers group in her parent’s home country of Sri Lanka was completely baseless and just a part of the M.I.A. image. M.I.A. retaliated and claimed some botched quoting, but the damage had been done. The idea of M.I.A. as a fake, no matter how unjustified, had seeped into pop-culture consciousness.
So now, whether she likes it or not, it seems Maya has become a near-litmus test for M.I.A.’s authenticity in the eyes of the public.
From this vantage point, it fails on many levels. Things first come off as amiss when the opening track, “The Message,” rattles off some ear-grinding, tripped-out nursery rhyme about how our neck bones are connected to our arm bones that are connected to the computers that are connected to Google that the government uses to spy on all of us. Is this a Youtube documentary or an M.I.A. album? Ok, it's off-putting but passable, politically charged if not so politically insightful.
Then we get into “Steppin' Up” and quickly realize Maya is quite possibly the worst album to play while nursing a hangover. If you took acid in a machine parts factory, “Stepping Up” would make a suitable, albeit terrible mindtrip-inducing soundtrack. Such lyrical insights as "I light up like a genie then I blow up on this song (rub-a-dub-a-dub-dub ruba-duba-dub-a-dub) / Aladdin, no kidding, boy I need a rub (rub-a-dub-a-dub-dub ruba-duba-dub-dub)” just add to the hyper-colored vat of mindless, clichéd weirdness that is this song.
We get it. M.I.A.’s rebelling, and with gusto. But whereas bands like Black Flag were rebelling because they were sick of pro-money, Regan-era cultural norms, M.I.A. seems to be rebelling because she desperately wants to be in the limelight, almost as if she's throwing an artful, beat-driven temper tantrum.
She makes a big bang, screams loud, and cries wolf in a sense; when we come running, lines like “'Cause you Tweeting me like Tweety Bird on your iPhone” (from “XXXO”) are what we find. Even “Born Free,” with it’s beat-you-over-the-head-allegorical, redhead genocide music video (below) is just another exercise in post-modern, self-love wordplay for M.I.A, the tiniest slivers of somewhat political thought ("Yeah man made powers / Stood like a tower higher and higher") thrown in for good measure.
Any smidgen of creativity or unique ideas on this thing come from a place of child-like curiosity, which is both a blessing and a curse for Maya. Some of the beats are capital "O" original and pretty refreshing, most notably the Diplo-produced “Tell Me Why” with its deliciously catchy, start-stop beat of chorus singers and Indian melodies that harkens back to the better days of 2007’s Kala. Unfortunately, there’s seems to be no limit on M.I.A.’s production quirks and need to incorporate novelty. Baby heartbeats? Sure, throw them in there. Power drills? Why not? Yeah, it may be cool for a few plays, but just becomes aurally abrasive after a few listens.
Maya comes off as a difficult album on multiple levels. You almost want to praise M.I.A’s complete, unfiltered, balls-to-the-wall mindset, but at the same time, it's hard to miss the glaringly apparent flaws in such an approach. Either way you look at it, M.I.A. elicits a response, and that’s half the game right there — that is, if you view artistic expression as a game rather than something a bit more transcendent and meaningful. Overall, Maya appears pretty comfortable with the former.
This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2010.