Guest guest Posted January 8, 2005 Report Share Posted January 8, 2005 In certain interpretations, Mathangi Devi may be understood as something of a left-hand Saraswati -- Saraswati being, of course, patroness of the arts, sciences, literature and speech, music and dance. Mathangi governs the same areas, but in their less conventional, less comfortable, less socially acceptable forms. And so it is perhaps fitting that one of hip-hop/rap's fastest rising stars is the 28-year-old Sri Lankan-born, London-based chanteuse who calls herself "M.I.A." -- real name Mathangi Arulpragasam. Until recently, M.I.A. -- the exiled daughter of a Tamil Tiger "freedom fighter" -- was making her mark mainly as a visual artist, exhibiting wildly color-enhanced prints of her own photography. In 2004, however, she created a splash in clubland and file-sharing circles when she released an unlikely, unusual dance single called "Galang" -- which has been enjoying a huge buzz recently, receiving gushing notices in magazines from Rolling Stone to The New Yorker. Her first full-length CD, titled "Arular," is due to be released next month (February 2005) on the XL Recordings label. She's a fascinating individual, and I thought some of you might enjoy reading the profile that appeared recently in London's Sunday Times. If it's your kinda thing ... enjoy! If not, sorry for the slightly off-topic post. DB ********** TAMIL TIGRESS BURNING BRIGHT Her sound is an explosive mix of bhangra, ragga, electro and hip-hop. But underneath her street style, the singer-songwriter behind MIA is a political animal. She has had more opportunities than most to have her eyes opened to the meaning of life, but for Maya Arulpragasam, the tipping point was surprisingly mundane. At the age of 10, the London-based MC was forced to flee her native Sri Lanka, where her father, a Tamil freedom fighter, remains to this day. Arriving in Britain, she and her mother and two siblings were housed on a notoriously racist council estate in Surrey. At school, the newcomer was dismissed as thick because she couldn't speak English and labelled The Thing because her surname was too long. Yet her epiphany was all about the colour pink. As a fine-art student at St Martins, she returned to Sri Lanka for the first time in 16 years, determined to capture on film the plight of the Tamils. "I came back with 60 hours of footage," she recalls, in her chitchatting singsong. "Then September 11 happened, so I couldn't use any of it — it would come across as pro-Tamil, as propaganda." She almost spits this last word out. "So I thought, 'I'll dress it up in really pretty colours and stick it on the wall alongside the fashion.' I took all these Sri Lankan faces and made them pink, and they went down a treat. Nobody asked me where they came from, whether that person was alive or dead. It was just, 'That looks great, can I have one? I'm going to stick it next to my bed.' And that was the first time I kind of went, 'Hey, there's something to this.'" Fast-forward three years and the 28-year-old is putting that lesson, that "this", to good use. The experience could, of course, have left her jaded. For Arulpragasam, though, this recognition helped unlock all the pain she had buried when she first left Sri Lanka. Prettified in pink, her St Martins images subverted the vapid work hanging beside them. Now, as a singer-songwriter under the name MIA (which stands for Missing in Acton), she is using the candy coating of a distinctly hybrid pop style to sweeten the bitter urgency of her lyrics. "In Britain, they make serious-sounding music that makes you want to kill yourself," she says, laughing. "Your girlfriend's left you, the sky is grey, it's pouring down. Everybody's rhyming `heart' with `apart', `love' with `above'. It's fashionable to say that talking about things is naff — if you want to bring up a point, you're Sting. So many bands don't have anything to say. But we have to. If you've got a microphone and access to five million brains every night, you can't just get up there and go, `Let's all get pissed and have a laugh.'" Hot though the hype is about MIA, access to 5m brains may be pushing it, for now at least. Her debut single, last year's white- label "Galang", made a lot of ears prick up. Within weeks, the track's exhilaratingly dirty mix of hard beats, street slang and distorted vocals unleashed the ubiquitous bidding war. XL, home to Dizzee Rascal and the White Stripes, won the day, and MIA was soon working with the likes of Richard X on her first album {to be released in February 2005]. ... Your ears would have to be really humming with the sound of old Britpop axes being ground not to feel the impact of MIA's new single, "Sun-showers" — Over the barest of drum patterns, Arulpragasam chucks bhangra, ragga, electro and hip-hop into the blender and scats a sinister, ominous explosive-device metaphor over the results. It's provocative, for sure, and that's just the way she intended it. "When I came back from Sri Lanka," she says, "I was going, `Look, this is going on in my country,' and everybody was like, `That's such a small problem, dude. My gas is about to be cut off.' And then when it (9/11) happened, I was like, `Those things I went through in Sri Lanka, they're relevant now. You know what I'm talking about.'" She's wary of the pigeonholing this may bring, but she's too immersed in the situation to simply smile serenely and mouth platitudes. "You don't choose to go through war," she argues. "It happens to you. If somebody says, `You ain't going to get a job, an education, your family's going to get murdered, your sister's going to get raped,' what are you going to do? It's not as easy as, `Oh, that's evil.'" The moment she landed in Britain as a child, she says, she embarked on an epic period of denial. "The day I set foot here, I was like, `Today, the better life starts for me. No more scabs on your head. You're going to be all right now.'" Her mother worked as a seamstress, sewing on medals for the royal family. "You'd have Prince Charles's jacket in your flat, and I was always trying to slip little notes in, saying, `Please help, get me out of here.'" The new arrivals were not exactly welcomed with open arms by London's Sri Lankan community. "They used to say, `Your kids are not in private school, your husband's chosen not to be with you,'" Arulpragasam scoffs. "They are really obsessed with impressing the British. They want to be doctors and engineers and go to Cambridge, buy leather couches to match their encyclopedias, have a sitar in the corner and whip their saris out once a year for a wedding. They'd look at us and go, `We don't want them hanging round with our kids, they're into rap, they think they're black.'" Which is precisely what Arulpragasam wanted to be when she went to stay with a cousin in California, partying with Eddie Murphy and Dr Dre, and very nearly moving there for good. "I thought, `Fuck it, I don't want to make art films that screen at the ICA to 30 people. I'll go to LA and be black: it's better than being in Britain and being brown.'" In the end, of course, she settled on pink, opened her eyes and, later, her ears. She insists she's tone deaf, and that once, attending church while on holiday in the Caribbean, she brought the service to a halt with her out-of-time clapping. "I figured out that I was actually clapping a melody on top of the song. I didn't realise that what you do is just clap to the beat. Then it was, `Right, I have to bring it down to simpleness and start from there.'" This process of self-education is going to be thrilling to listen to: simple, maybe, but deadly, too. Who would dare dismiss her as The Thing now? SOURCE: The Times. Tamil tigress burning bright. By Dan Cairns of The Sunday Times. URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7948-1173543,00.html MIA'S OWN SITE: http://www.miauk.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 8, 2005 Report Share Posted January 8, 2005 Namaste Devi Bhakta, I for one wish the young lady had decided to stay in the states. I'm sure the Hip Hop community would have loved her and it certainly could have used her fresh perspectives. I'm going to say something possibly controversial here...Matangi is an original Mahavidya and Saraswati has taken her place in many Hindu oriented Tantric schools as a result of the Brahman influence...Matangi became a Devi associated with the Untouchables. She may be using artists like this young lady to "come out of the shadows" I don't think it was at all off topic. Peace, Liaya Thank you D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 8, 2005 Report Share Posted January 8, 2005 Something to be mindful of from the Human Rights Watch & Amnesty International websites about Sri Lanka. I'm not biased towards either group in that unfortunate conflict and fear posting this to open up political garbage, but want people to know that the Tamil Tigers are pretty awful as a freedom movement. They're in a race with the Sinhala Gov't. to see who's a bigger gangster and human right violator. IMHO they don't deserve glorification, support from those in tune with Sanatana Dharma belongs to non-violent movements: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/12/20/slanka9918_txt.htm http://web.amnesty.org/library/eng-lka/index Canada's Tamils must rethink LTTE support By Jo Becker, Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch's Children's Rights Division, published in The Toronto Star Sunday, December 19, 2004 Selvamani, a Tamil girl living in eastern Sri Lanka was only 15 when rebel forces began pressuring her to join them. "First they sent letters, then they began visiting my house," she said. "They told my family, 'Each house has to turn over one child. If you don't agree, we will take a child anyway.'" Not long afterwards, in August, 2002, soldiers from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, or Tamil Tigers) abducted Selvamani while she was walking to class. They took her to a military training camp where she learned to use weapons, including landmines and bombs. During training, when she became too weary to continue and asked to rest, the rebels beat her. Canadian Tamils don't have to worry that their children will one day vanish on the way home from school and end up in a military training camp. But the Tamil community in Canada bears some responsibility for the fate of children like Selvamani. Many of Canada's 250,000 Sri Lankan Tamils provide financial and political support for the LTTE, enabling the group to continue its recruitment and use of child soldiers. The LTTE receives significant funding (often through charitable "fronts") from Sri Lankan Tamils overseas. With the largest Tamil diaspora in the world, Canada is a significant source of such funding. Some experts estimate that Tamils in Canada provide $1 million to $2 million each month to front organizations for the LTTE. Many Tamil donors may be unaware that their contributions support the recruitment of child soldiers. Although a 2002 ceasefire brought an end to active fighting between the LTTE and the government, the Tigers have continued to recruit thousands of children into their ranks, often by force. During an investigation earlier this year in eastern Sri Lanka, dozens of children told Human Rights Watch that they had been forced or coerced to join the Tamil Tigers. Like Selvamani, they described rebel soldiers traveling from house to house, threatening Tamil families with violence unless they agreed to provide their sons and daughters for military service. When families refuse, the Tamil Tigers often abduct children from their homes at night, or pick them up from temple festivals or other public places. Many children are living in fear. Some are too scared to go to school, believing they may be snatched on the way. Others are afraid to leave their homes. Vanji had already spent several years in the Tamil Tigers and been severely disabled in combat when the Tamil Tigers took her younger brother in July. She went to the local Tamil Tigers camp to beg for his return, saying, ``I gave you years of my life and I gave you my health. Please let me have my brother back.'' Not only did the Tamil Tigers refuse to return her brother, Vanji said, but they also threatened to shoot her if she reported the case. The rebels also told her that she had to rejoin their forces. She asked, ``Is this how they thank me for all the time I gave them? Why are they doing this to me?'' At least 3,500 children have been recruited by the Tamil Tigers since the start of the ceasefire in February, 2002, according to cases documented by UNICEF. The U.N. agency states that this number is only a portion of the true total, as many families may be unable or too afraid to register their case. International law prohibits the recruitment of children under the age of 18 by non-state armed groups, and their participation in an armed conflict. The recruitment — whether voluntarily or forced — and use of children under the age of 15 is now considered a war crime. The Tigers deny that they recruit children by force, and instead claim that any children in their forces have joined because of poverty, lack of educational opportunities, or because they are orphaned and have no one to care for them. Although some children do join for these reasons or because they want to fight for an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka, such ``voluntary'' recruitment is also a violation of international law. Many Tamils in Canada fled the war in Sri Lanka and are now able to raise their families in safety. But they still have a responsibility to the children and families left behind. They should actively question the LTTE on its recruitment of children. They should urge the LTTE to publicly inform families throughout the north and east of its commitment not to recruit children, and to create a high-level task force to resolve outstanding cases of under-age recruitment. Most importantly, the Tamil community should withhold any financial support for the LTTE or organizations providing it with support until UNICEF verifies that all child recruitment and other serious human rights violations have stopped. , "Devi Bhakta" <devi_bhakta> wrote: > > In certain interpretations, Mathangi Devi may be understood as > something of a left-hand Saraswati -- Saraswati being, of course, > patroness of the arts, sciences, literature and speech, music and > dance. Mathangi governs the same areas, but in their less > conventional, less comfortable, less socially acceptable forms. > > And so it is perhaps fitting that one of hip-hop/rap's fastest rising > stars is the 28-year-old Sri Lankan-born, London-based chanteuse who > calls herself "M.I.A." -- real name Mathangi Arulpragasam. > > Until recently, M.I.A. -- the exiled daughter of a Tamil > Tiger "freedom fighter" -- was making her mark mainly as a visual > artist, exhibiting wildly color-enhanced prints of her own > photography. In 2004, however, she created a splash in clubland and > file-sharing circles when she released an unlikely, unusual dance > single called "Galang" -- which has been enjoying a huge buzz > recently, receiving gushing notices in magazines from Rolling Stone > to The New Yorker. > > Her first full-length CD, titled "Arular," is due to be released next > month (February 2005) on the XL Recordings label. She's a fascinating > individual, and I thought some of you might enjoy reading the profile > that appeared recently in London's Sunday Times. > > If it's your kinda thing ... enjoy! If not, sorry for the slightly > off-topic post. > > DB > > ********** > > TAMIL TIGRESS BURNING BRIGHT > > Her sound is an explosive mix of bhangra, ragga, electro and hip-hop. > But underneath her street style, the singer-songwriter behind MIA is > a political animal. > > She has had more opportunities than most to have her eyes opened to > the meaning of life, but for Maya Arulpragasam, the tipping point was > surprisingly mundane. At the age of 10, the London-based MC was > forced to flee her native Sri Lanka, where her father, a Tamil > freedom fighter, remains to this day. Arriving in Britain, she and > her mother and two siblings were housed on a notoriously racist > council estate in Surrey. At school, the newcomer was dismissed as > thick because she couldn't speak English and labelled The Thing > because her surname was too long. Yet her epiphany was all about the > colour pink. > > As a fine-art student at St Martins, she returned to Sri Lanka for > the first time in 16 years, determined to capture on film the plight > of the Tamils. > > "I came back with 60 hours of footage," she recalls, in her > chitchatting singsong. "Then September 11 happened, so I couldn't use > any of it — it would come across as pro-Tamil, as propaganda." She > almost spits this last word out. "So I thought, 'I'll dress it up in > really pretty colours and stick it on the wall alongside the > fashion.' I took all these Sri Lankan faces and made them pink, and > they went down a treat. Nobody asked me where they came from, whether > that person was alive or dead. It was just, 'That looks great, can I > have one? I'm going to stick it next to my bed.' And that was the > first time I kind of went, 'Hey, there's something to this.'" > > Fast-forward three years and the 28-year-old is putting that lesson, > that "this", to good use. The experience could, of course, have left > her jaded. For Arulpragasam, though, this recognition helped unlock > all the pain she had buried when she first left Sri Lanka. Prettified > in pink, her St Martins images subverted the vapid work hanging > beside them. Now, as a singer-songwriter under the name MIA (which > stands for Missing in Acton), she is using the candy coating of a > distinctly hybrid pop style to sweeten the bitter urgency of her > lyrics. > > "In Britain, they make serious-sounding music that makes you want to > kill yourself," she says, laughing. "Your girlfriend's left you, the > sky is grey, it's pouring down. Everybody's rhyming `heart' > with `apart', `love' with `above'. It's fashionable to say that > talking about things is naff — if you want to bring up a point, > you're Sting. So many bands don't have anything to say. But we have > to. If you've got a microphone and access to five million brains > every night, you can't just get up there and go, `Let's all get > pissed and have a laugh.'" > > Hot though the hype is about MIA, access to 5m brains may be pushing > it, for now at least. Her debut single, last year's white- > label "Galang", made a lot of ears prick up. Within weeks, the > track's exhilaratingly dirty mix of hard beats, street slang and > distorted vocals unleashed the ubiquitous bidding war. XL, home to > Dizzee Rascal and the White Stripes, won the day, and MIA was soon > working with the likes of Richard X on her first album {to be > released in February 2005]. ... > > Your ears would have to be really humming with the sound of old > Britpop axes being ground not to feel the impact of MIA's new > single, "Sun-showers" — Over the barest of drum patterns, > Arulpragasam chucks bhangra, ragga, electro and hip-hop into the > blender and scats a sinister, ominous explosive-device metaphor over > the results. It's provocative, for sure, and that's just the way she > intended it. > > "When I came back from Sri Lanka," she says, "I was going, `Look, > this is going on in my country,' and everybody was like, `That's such > a small problem, dude. My gas is about to be cut off.' And then when > it (9/11) happened, I was like, `Those things I went through in Sri > Lanka, they're relevant now. You know what I'm talking about.'" She's > wary of the pigeonholing this may bring, but she's too immersed in > the situation to simply smile serenely and mouth platitudes. "You > don't choose to go through war," she argues. "It happens to you. If > somebody says, `You ain't going to get a job, an education, your > family's going to get murdered, your sister's going to get raped,' > what are you going to do? It's not as easy as, `Oh, that's evil.'" > > The moment she landed in Britain as a child, she says, she embarked > on an epic period of denial. "The day I set foot here, I was > like, `Today, the better life starts for me. No more scabs on your > head. You're going to be all right now.'" Her mother worked as a > seamstress, sewing on medals for the royal family. "You'd have Prince > Charles's jacket in your flat, and I was always trying to slip little > notes in, saying, `Please help, get me out of here.'" > > The new arrivals were not exactly welcomed with open arms by London's > Sri Lankan community. "They used to say, `Your kids are not in > private school, your husband's chosen not to be with you,'" > Arulpragasam scoffs. "They are really obsessed with impressing the > British. They want to be doctors and engineers and go to Cambridge, > buy leather couches to match their encyclopedias, have a sitar in the > corner and whip their saris out once a year for a wedding. They'd > look at us and go, `We don't want them hanging round with our kids, > they're into rap, they think they're black.'" > > Which is precisely what Arulpragasam wanted to be when she went to > stay with a cousin in California, partying with Eddie Murphy and Dr > Dre, and very nearly moving there for good. "I thought, `Fuck it, I > don't want to make art films that screen at the ICA to 30 people. > I'll go to LA and be black: it's better than being in Britain and > being brown.'" > > In the end, of course, she settled on pink, opened her eyes and, > later, her ears. She insists she's tone deaf, and that once, > attending church while on holiday in the Caribbean, she brought the > service to a halt with her out-of-time clapping. "I figured out that > I was actually clapping a melody on top of the song. I didn't realise > that what you do is just clap to the beat. Then it was, `Right, I > have to bring it down to simpleness and start from there.'" > > This process of self-education is going to be thrilling to listen to: > simple, maybe, but deadly, too. Who would dare dismiss her as The > Thing now? > > SOURCE: The Times. Tamil tigress burning bright. By Dan Cairns of The > Sunday Times. > URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7948-1173543,00.html > MIA'S OWN SITE: http://www.miauk.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 9, 2005 Report Share Posted January 9, 2005 Dear Liaya ... Thank you; I am glad that you understood my meaning in sharing this post with the group for those who might apreciate it. Mathangi Devi is complex and multilayered beyond words. You are correct that is certain systems Her associations are with the outcaste and the forbidden. All of that is out there, as She reveals in detail to those who take the time to know Her. But please know that She is not only the ultimate outsider, but also the ultimate insider. The vastly popular Meenakshi Devi of Madurai is, in fact, none other than Mathangi. And in SriVidya -- by far the most complete, refined and sophisticated school of Shaktism -- She is openly understood as part of the central triad; if Lalita Tripurasundari is Supreme Ruler, the Mathangi is Her Prime Minister, and Varahi Her commander-in-chief. A Devi as powerfully subtle and complex as Matangi is not only eroding Brahmanical hegemony from without; She is also the heartbeat of the very real "Fifth Column" working from within its very core. Aum MAtangyai NamaH , "ctopaz70" <ctopaz70> wrote: Matangi is an original Mahavidya and Saraswati has taken her place in many Hindu oriented Tantric schools as a result of the Brahman influence...Matangi became a Devi associated with the Untouchables. She may be using artists like this young lady to "come out of the shadows" I don't think it was at all off topic. Peace, Liaya > > Thank you D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 11, 2005 Report Share Posted January 11, 2005 I received the following response in a private e-mail, and thought I would share it with the group in case any of you had similar feelings. My use of the word "Brahminical" was too loose, I must agree -- it was not intended as a slam against Brahmins as a social group; I most certainly do not harbor any such prejudices. It was just a rather sloppy and imprecise reference to certain exclusivist systems that would define qualification by one's birth rather than one's state of spiritual evolution. Here is the mail: Devi Bhakta, you wrote: "A Devi as powerfully subtle and complex as Matangi is not only eroding Brahmanical hegemony from without" There was never something called a Brahminical hegemony. Please understand that. There are some bad brahmins thru out history just like there are bad kshatriya-s, vaishyas, shudras and chandalas. That is it. IMHO, one needs to discard that old mentality of Brahmins trying to hurt or usurp things. For that a clear understanding of Indian history is required. namaste , "Devi Bhakta" <devi_bhakta> wrote: > > Dear Liaya ... > > Thank you; I am glad that you understood my meaning in sharing this > post with the group for those who might apreciate it. > > Mathangi Devi is complex and multilayered beyond words. You are > correct that is certain systems Her associations are with the > outcaste and the forbidden. All of that is out there, as She reveals > in detail to those who take the time to know Her. > > But please know that She is not only the ultimate outsider, but also > the ultimate insider. The vastly popular Meenakshi Devi of Madurai > is, in fact, none other than Mathangi. And in SriVidya -- by far the > most complete, refined and sophisticated school of Shaktism -- She is > openly understood as part of the central triad; if Lalita > Tripurasundari is Supreme Ruler, the Mathangi is Her Prime Minister, > and Varahi Her commander-in-chief. > > A Devi as powerfully subtle and complex as Matangi is not only > eroding Brahmanical hegemony from without; She is also the heartbeat > of the very real "Fifth Column" working from within its very core. > > Aum MAtangyai NamaH > > , "ctopaz70" <ctopaz70> > wrote: > > Matangi is an original Mahavidya and Saraswati has taken her place in > many Hindu oriented Tantric schools as a result of the Brahman > influence...Matangi became a Devi associated with the Untouchables. > She may be using artists like this young lady to "come out of the > shadows" I don't think it was at all off topic. Peace, Liaya > > > > Thank you D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 23, 2005 Report Share Posted March 23, 2005 In case anyone's interested, the debut CD by M.I.A., a/k/a Mathangi Arulpragasam -- a Sri Lankan Tamil refugee turned hip-hop chanteuse, whom we'd discussed a little on the board in January -- was finally released in the US yesterday (March 22, 2005) after several delays caused by licensing issues on a couple of samples used on the recording. So far, so good. Rolling Stone magazine gave it a 4-star rating and this rather gushing review: M.I.A./ ARULAR (XL/Beggar's Banquet) You've never heard anything like M.I.A. -- the sound of jump-rope rhymes in a war zone. She blew out of the London electro underground last year with her indie debut single, Galang. M.I.A. chants the hook "London calling/Speak the slang now" while she plays with her cheapskate beatbox and amps up her minimal buzzes and bleeps into monstrously cool explosions. It sounds like Bow Wow Wow shooting bottle rockets into a vintage Ms. Pac-Man machine to scare the quarters out. M.I.A.'s long-awaited full-length debut, Arular, is every bit as stunning as "Galang": weird, playful, unclassifiable, sexy, brilliantly addictive. M.I.A. is Maya Arulpragasam, 28, a Sri Lankan artist who grew up in London after her family was forced to flee her nation's civil war. She wrote the songs for Arular on her trusty Roland MC-505 Groovebox, with producers such as Steve Mackey, Ross Orton and Richard X. There's nothing purist about her, as she hot-wires bhangra beats, dancehall toasting, Miami bass and old-school electro. In killer tracks such as "Fire Fire" and "Amazon," she raps about political troubles, war and refugee life, in her own tough no- big-deal way. "Sunshowers" noises up an old 1970s disco hit with excellent rhymes ("I salt and pepper my mango/Shoot spit out the window"). Even when you have no idea what she's saying, you have to love how M.I.A. plays bongos on her lingo: "Blaze to blaze, galang galang galanga/Purple haze, galang galang galanga!" Join in the chant. URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/_/id/6857856/mia? pageid=rs.ReviewsAlbumArchive&pageregion=mainRegion&rnd=1111602091515 &has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1059 , "Devi Bhakta" <devi_bhakta> wrote: > > In certain interpretations, Mathangi Devi may be understood as > something of a left-hand Saraswati -- Saraswati being, of course, > patroness of the arts, sciences, literature and speech, music and > dance. Mathangi governs the same areas, but in their less > conventional, less comfortable, less socially acceptable forms. > > And so it is perhaps fitting that one of hip-hop/rap's fastest rising > stars is the 28-year-old Sri Lankan-born, London-based chanteuse who > calls herself "M.I.A." -- real name Mathangi Arulpragasam. > > Until recently, M.I.A. -- the exiled daughter of a Tamil > Tiger "freedom fighter" -- was making her mark mainly as a visual > artist, exhibiting wildly color-enhanced prints of her own > photography. In 2004, however, she created a splash in clubland and > file-sharing circles when she released an unlikely, unusual dance > single called "Galang" -- which has been enjoying a huge buzz > recently, receiving gushing notices in magazines from Rolling Stone > to The New Yorker. > > Her first full-length CD, titled "Arular," is due to be released next > month (February 2005) on the XL Recordings label. She's a fascinating > individual, and I thought some of you might enjoy reading the profile > that appeared recently in London's Sunday Times. > > If it's your kinda thing ... enjoy! If not, sorry for the slightly > off-topic post. > > DB > > ********** > > TAMIL TIGRESS BURNING BRIGHT > > Her sound is an explosive mix of bhangra, ragga, electro and hip- hop. > But underneath her street style, the singer-songwriter behind MIA is > a political animal. > > She has had more opportunities than most to have her eyes opened to > the meaning of life, but for Maya Arulpragasam, the tipping point was > surprisingly mundane. At the age of 10, the London-based MC was > forced to flee her native Sri Lanka, where her father, a Tamil > freedom fighter, remains to this day. Arriving in Britain, she and > her mother and two siblings were housed on a notoriously racist > council estate in Surrey. At school, the newcomer was dismissed as > thick because she couldn't speak English and labelled The Thing > because her surname was too long. Yet her epiphany was all about the > colour pink. > > As a fine-art student at St Martins, she returned to Sri Lanka for > the first time in 16 years, determined to capture on film the plight > of the Tamils. > > "I came back with 60 hours of footage," she recalls, in her > chitchatting singsong. "Then September 11 happened, so I couldn't use > any of it — it would come across as pro-Tamil, as propaganda." She > almost spits this last word out. "So I thought, 'I'll dress it up in > really pretty colours and stick it on the wall alongside the > fashion.' I took all these Sri Lankan faces and made them pink, and > they went down a treat. Nobody asked me where they came from, whether > that person was alive or dead. It was just, 'That looks great, can I > have one? I'm going to stick it next to my bed.' And that was the > first time I kind of went, 'Hey, there's something to this.'" > > Fast-forward three years and the 28-year-old is putting that lesson, > that "this", to good use. The experience could, of course, have left > her jaded. For Arulpragasam, though, this recognition helped unlock > all the pain she had buried when she first left Sri Lanka. Prettified > in pink, her St Martins images subverted the vapid work hanging > beside them. Now, as a singer-songwriter under the name MIA (which > stands for Missing in Acton), she is using the candy coating of a > distinctly hybrid pop style to sweeten the bitter urgency of her > lyrics. > > "In Britain, they make serious-sounding music that makes you want to > kill yourself," she says, laughing. "Your girlfriend's left you, the > sky is grey, it's pouring down. Everybody's rhyming `heart' > with `apart', `love' with `above'. It's fashionable to say that > talking about things is naff — if you want to bring up a point, > you're Sting. So many bands don't have anything to say. But we have > to. If you've got a microphone and access to five million brains > every night, you can't just get up there and go, `Let's all get > pissed and have a laugh.'" > > Hot though the hype is about MIA, access to 5m brains may be pushing > it, for now at least. Her debut single, last year's white- > label "Galang", made a lot of ears prick up. Within weeks, the > track's exhilaratingly dirty mix of hard beats, street slang and > distorted vocals unleashed the ubiquitous bidding war. XL, home to > Dizzee Rascal and the White Stripes, won the day, and MIA was soon > working with the likes of Richard X on her first album {to be > released in February 2005]. ... > > Your ears would have to be really humming with the sound of old > Britpop axes being ground not to feel the impact of MIA's new > single, "Sun-showers" — Over the barest of drum patterns, > Arulpragasam chucks bhangra, ragga, electro and hip-hop into the > blender and scats a sinister, ominous explosive-device metaphor over > the results. It's provocative, for sure, and that's just the way she > intended it. > > "When I came back from Sri Lanka," she says, "I was going, `Look, > this is going on in my country,' and everybody was like, `That's such > a small problem, dude. My gas is about to be cut off.' And then when > it (9/11) happened, I was like, `Those things I went through in Sri > Lanka, they're relevant now. You know what I'm talking about.'" She's > wary of the pigeonholing this may bring, but she's too immersed in > the situation to simply smile serenely and mouth platitudes. "You > don't choose to go through war," she argues. "It happens to you. If > somebody says, `You ain't going to get a job, an education, your > family's going to get murdered, your sister's going to get raped,' > what are you going to do? It's not as easy as, `Oh, that's evil.'" > > The moment she landed in Britain as a child, she says, she embarked > on an epic period of denial. "The day I set foot here, I was > like, `Today, the better life starts for me. No more scabs on your > head. You're going to be all right now.'" Her mother worked as a > seamstress, sewing on medals for the royal family. "You'd have Prince > Charles's jacket in your flat, and I was always trying to slip little > notes in, saying, `Please help, get me out of here.'" > > The new arrivals were not exactly welcomed with open arms by London's > Sri Lankan community. "They used to say, `Your kids are not in > private school, your husband's chosen not to be with you,'" > Arulpragasam scoffs. "They are really obsessed with impressing the > British. They want to be doctors and engineers and go to Cambridge, > buy leather couches to match their encyclopedias, have a sitar in the > corner and whip their saris out once a year for a wedding. They'd > look at us and go, `We don't want them hanging round with our kids, > they're into rap, they think they're black.'" > > Which is precisely what Arulpragasam wanted to be when she went to > stay with a cousin in California, partying with Eddie Murphy and Dr > Dre, and very nearly moving there for good. "I thought, `Fuck it, I > don't want to make art films that screen at the ICA to 30 people. > I'll go to LA and be black: it's better than being in Britain and > being brown.'" > > In the end, of course, she settled on pink, opened her eyes and, > later, her ears. She insists she's tone deaf, and that once, > attending church while on holiday in the Caribbean, she brought the > service to a halt with her out-of-time clapping. "I figured out that > I was actually clapping a melody on top of the song. I didn't realise > that what you do is just clap to the beat. Then it was, `Right, I > have to bring it down to simpleness and start from there.'" > > This process of self-education is going to be thrilling to listen to: > simple, maybe, but deadly, too. Who would dare dismiss her as The > Thing now? > > SOURCE: The Times. Tamil tigress burning bright. By Dan Cairns of The > Sunday Times. > URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7948-1173543,00.html > MIA'S OWN SITE: http://www.miauk.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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