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Let’s go back — and I know you may not want to — to Priyanka Chopra’s “Exotic.” It’s an exercise in other-ness that doesn’t lie about what it is. It’s a cheap, throwaway stab at capitalizing on the fact that a primarily white audience wants to savor the Indian culture like a samosa, rather than understanding it as a way of life for the people of that actual culture.
“Exotic” makes tangible a couple unfortunate realities about M.I.A. Primarily, it helps us identify what about her current body of work is so disconcerting. The very fundamental ideals that M.I.A. appeared to hold so sacrosanct in the earlier years of her career have now become nothing more than tokens to be traded in for more fame, more relevance, and more sales.
Fair enough. She was already doing this from the start. But what seems different, especially from the concert Saturday night, is that her material now seems especially divorced from any kind of context. Gone are the politics that fueled her earlier albums. They’ve become replaced by an amalgam of images, symbols, and sounds which now serve to boost M.I.A.’s brand aesthetic without addressing who she really is. I think particularly back to “XXXO.” Like Saturday night’s set, it seems oddly divorced from much of her canon.
It’s a solid pop song. But served up from the performer who gave the world such brilliant jams as “10$” and “Paper Planes,” it seems basic. “Basic” then becomes the best word to describe M.I.A.’s current aesthetic — a remix of noise and images that have lost much of their original meaning. We’ve entered an era where M.I.A.’s creative output has become no more original than a song as disposable as “Exotic” in many regards. Both leverage the performer’s cultural heritage as a means to create a brand and an identity without necessarily offering substance — it’s the quintessence of pop.
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So here we are: M.I.A. now appears more concerned in maintaining and strengthening her brand than with telling stories or inspiring social change. It’s a cynical attitude that’s severely cut the quality of her creative output. Worse, her sense of urgency in telling the world about the frayed political and social fabric of her homeland — or any land — has dissipated as she’s reached a level of success.
Matangi will likely be a critical juncture for M.I.A. — she can either bounce back from the hollowness of /\/\ /\ Y /\ and arc towards the same ambition that drove her earlier work, or she can plunge further into commercial depths which favor style over substance. In pop culture, though, icons come and go. As much as I’d love to see M.I.A. remain the queen of the revolution, if she remains no longer up to the task — opting instead to indulge in the bling and kitsch of Brentwood, L.A. — there will always be someone else to take her place.
I agree entirely with how you characterize M.I.A.’s recent output, but at what point is this an unescapable problem all artists face? What’s that old Elvis Costello quote about having 20 years to write your first album and 6 months to write your second. I just don’t see how she could find the material to replicate records as strong as Arular or Kala.
She’s incredibly rich now. You want revolutionary fervor from the 1%?
I don’t think one less than stellar album is cause for concern. I feel that most of us have a habit of jumping the gun and declaring that artists have “peaked” and “sold out” to the establishment when in in reality they’re just experimenting with different sounds or have had trouble getting their creative juices going. If it becomes a pattern…then we can talk about it.
MIA has become a complete sell-out. She started out strong but got really lost around the time she collaborated with Madonna. I want to support her and her struggles – a woman and a minority in the music business – but when she decided to have a baby with a billionaire she totally lost me.