random niceness // M.I.A.

I remember my first encounter with M.I.A. was listening to this song "Galang" in 2003 which I have found on the internet by coincidence. Two years later it was released on her debut album "Arular".

I thought that the song was kinda cool and that she's just one of a million dope London chicks who was lucky enough to be released. And I must admit that I didn't give M.I.A. much attention ever since until the release of her song "Paper Planes" for the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" and her "i'm-about-to-pop-a-baby-but-i-really-want-to-perform-at-the-51st-grammys" performance in 2009.

I was a bit surprised by that and so I started reading about her. I was really impressed by her biography (being the daughter of a Sri Lankan revolutionary, studying at the Saint Martins College of Art and Design, working with lots of great artists, being nominated as TIME-Mag's „100 World's Most Influential People“, bla bla bla) but still: even though I was really impressed by her being a real artist, I still didn't pay attention to her.

I was in New York in May 2010 and suddenly there was this video "Born free" and EVERYBODY was talking about it! The director Romain Gavras kind of made me want to shoot myself in the head while watching it. I think that it is one of the most captivating political music videos out there.

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

But the only reason why I am writing all of this is a quote that I love out of the song "The Message" from Miss Maya's new Album "Maya" which was released in July 2010.

“Headbone connects to the headphones, headphones connect to the iPhone, iPhone connected to the internet, connected to the Google, connected to the government.“

POW! And so true.