More MIA

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s_clover

Member
Aijaz Ahmad (and particularly in "In Theory") has been magnificantly devestating about the situatedness of, ahem hem "diaspora discourse". can't find any articles online, but the book is fantastic on Rushdie in particular.
 
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henrymiller

Well-known member
first par from the guardian's review:

"For Maya Arulpragasam, guerrilla tactics aren't a trendy tag for a shambolic gig, they're a way of life. Having survived the upheaval of moving from Britain to the rebellion-torn Sri Lankan homeland of her father, a freedom fighter, she came back to the UK only to battle her way through life on a south London council estate."
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
blissblogger said:
i said this on the other thread but i'll put here just so it's easy for the PC-er than thou hyper-sensitive crew to refer to:

"here is a record that is SLATHERED, CAKED, with signifiers of authenticity -- overt allusions , sonic/lyrical/design etc, to street music, the subaltern, ghetto communities, guerrilla struggle, and then surrounded by a critical discourse that quite breezily took it as genuine street-level world music (something like that -- i forget the specific SFJ quote that pretty much set the tone for all later celebration of the artist)

and yet when a critic actually pays scrutiny to the very credentials that are being FRANTICALLY BRANDISHED by the artist and its label (all over new york right now there are posters advertising the album with the slogan 'pull up the people, pull up the poor') this is supposed to be an off-color (boom-boom) thing to do. an imposition of criteria and "pre-conceived notions" that could not possibly be more inappropriate and uncalled for.
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im not hyper sensitive or PCer than thou (actually, this whole anti-pc ethos seems redolent of people who simply cant be bothered to get things right or learn about other cultures so they instantly adopt this anti-PC pose as an escape), but i come from a similar background to MIA, and find your grand exalter status arrogant. but then i remember your old public enemy reviews as well, so i suppose your somewhat pompous, typically patronising white upper middle class broadsheet tone should come as no surprise. i have no problem with anyone scrutinising the very credentials that are being brandished, rather with the way theyre being discussed and attacked. whats wrong with a slogan saying pull up the people, pull up the poor? would you have the same problem with 50 cent brandishing his gangsta authenticity? or do you prefer a good ol bit of street nihilism over someone actually trying to espouse some sort of politicised (no matter how vague) message? you seem awfully quick to want to put MIA in her place, tell her she knows nothing about politics or world situations or anything really, and that all she should do is make party records and insert nothing that attempts to provoke a reaction in her work. you cant see it from any other perspective but your own. i dont get why lyrics like that pull up the people slogan are quite so provocative or have incited such critical reaction, if anything theyre simple platitudes that most 'socially conscious' artists have uttered at some point in their career. perhaps MIA should just accept her lot in life and not try to say anything.

blissblogger said:
here we have a pop artifact that is limned with all this stuff to do with race and class -- but if you discuss it in these terms that's what, somehow racially insentitive or inverted snobbery?
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its not discussing it thats the problem, but the way its being discussed.

blissblogger said:
i would have thought pointing out that a record that makes like it's from the projects but is in actual fact an art project (that's what she calls it-- the MIA project), i would have thought that was a fairly salient point. i would have thought that would have been within the bounds of legitimate comment."

and I-go-where-no-Gringo-Goes Diplo has been getting his fair share of flak, if you ask me
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where the fuck has she said shes all about the projects or estates? she hardly mentions it in the album. and so what if its an art album? just because she calls it that or came from an art school does not make it any less authentic than if she dropped out of school after her GCSEs. unless thats your criteria for authenticity? its funny how middle classers still always fetisihise this idea of pure, undluted art or music coming from the working classes. your problem seems to be that simply because MIA has been to st martins or wherever, that automatically puts her on the same level as white musical-cultural tourists and robs her of all authenticity, but by that criteria (and i dont know what criteria for authenticity youre using), public enemy cos chuck d went to college, or that rakim isnt 'legit' because he didnt drop out of high school.

believe it or not, the experience of non white people in the UK is -gasp!- actually a bit different to white people by default, so who cares if MIA went to art school, this doesnt make her exactly the same as jagger going to LSE and then posturing as some sort of comical rebel. by your criteria, youd probably lambast black intellectual-critics like greg tate for being well educated and suggest that they simply cant speak on black issues cos theyre too far removed from the majority of working class black people in the US. if anything, MIA offers an art school perspective on what british born asian artists might do in the same way someone like organized konfusion or justin warfield or saul williams offer a hint at the black-art school perspective.
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
henrymiller said:
first par from the guardian's review:

"For Maya Arulpragasam, guerrilla tactics aren't a trendy tag for a shambolic gig, they're a way of life. Having survived the upheaval of moving from Britain to the rebellion-torn Sri Lankan homeland of her father, a freedom fighter, she came back to the UK only to battle her way through life on a south London council estate."
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that privileged bitch. why wasnt she living in a cardboard box when she arrived here? and she actually paid for a flight to get to the UK?! rich cow!
 
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stelfox

Beast of Burden
gumdrops, there's really no need for personal attacks. neither henry, myself, simon or anyone else is saying that maya should have been denied education, social mobility or all the things we take for granted because she came to a western nation as a refugee. this is what you're trying to insinuate "our position" (scare quotes because it isn't one position at all) *really* is and franky that's pretty despicable - way beyond a matter of simple poor taste. i'm getting *very* tired of all the hysteria surrounding this artist and any criticism of her work. pack it the fuck in, please.
 
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puretokyo

Mercury Blues
What amazes me is just how hysterical the anti MIA front is. The sheer outrage so many people here are voicing seems totally out of proportion. Like, whats the problem, really? MIA's popularity can only increase that of baile, dancehall, grime whatever. She certainly isn't taking away from legitimate artists, and what the fuck is wrong with donning the trappings of another style of music or going to art school?

The Velvet Underground, as much as I adore, were the hugest group of effete art-school wankers ever to stride the stages of New York. By their own admission. So where then for MIA?

God I'm tired of this so-called debate.
 
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henrymiller

Well-known member
from the observer's review:
"...deposited on a racist estate in south London..."
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Gumdrops, as it goes I quite like MIA's music, I'm just interested in how her 'project' is being inserted, both by her and by newspapers like the observer, into the culture at large. in a way the debates here and elsewhere have been a bit previous, because it's only now that MIA's getting real attention. but on the other hand, as i think the reviews i've quoted show, most of the fears of the anti-MIA brigade were well-founded. this quote in particular is typical north london ivory-towerism. like what is a 'racist estate'?
 
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gabriel

The Heatwave
i'm definitely tempted to dismiss mia as a fake, poseur, bandwagonist and so on but fortunately i don't need to resort to these problematic assessments as the fact is that the most important thing about all of this is that mia's music is fucking rubbish and she can't rap, mc or deejay for shit.
 
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stelfox

Beast of Burden
to most people in the london media "racist estate" will read as pure tautology...
"THESE PEOPLE ARE POOR AND UNEDUCATED - OF COURSE THEY'RE RACIST!"
 
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3underscore

Well-known member
The one thing all the attention, bickering and everything has made me feel decidedly is that I don't want to hear this album, or anything more about it. It may be good, I am sure it isn't lifechanging, and all this discussion makes my head hurt.
 
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martin

----
3underscore said:
The one thing all the attention, bickering and everything has made me feel decidedly is that I don't want to hear this album, or anything more about it. It may be good, I am sure it isn't lifechanging, and all this discussion makes my head hurt.
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I liked it for about 3 weeks, but now I think the album's just a straw man.
 
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Canada J Soup

Monkey Man
What amazes me is just how hysterical the anti MIA front is.

There has been an equal (if not greater) level of hysteria (not to mention quite a few snide, deliberate-seeming misinterpretations of any and all anti-MIA comments as being rooted in racism / misogyny / fun-hating as opposed to a subjective dislike of her music, politics and marketeering) coming from the pro-MIA contingent on ILM. It's been interesting to watch the hype and anti-hype coming together and escalating each other. I’m sure there’s a sociology dissertation in there somewhere.

Personally, I'm in the don't care camp. I hope M.I.A. sells lots of records to people who aren't me. It's not going to hurt my ears too much hear it playing in car stereos or at the occasional party.
 
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bun-u

Trumpet Police
Canada J Soup said:
Personally, I'm in the don't care camp. I hope M.I.A. sells lots of records to people who aren't me. It's not going to hurt my ears too much hear it playing in car stereos or at the occasional party.
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oh but you MUST have a serious thought out poisition on MIA...
 
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stelfox

Beast of Burden
thank you mr soup! i particularly enjoyed one ILM person saying that "reading the dissensus thread on MIA "literally made me physically sick". still, i do think there's been waaay too much bad blood over this very mediocre record, so i wish it would all die down a while.
 
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