Empowered Female Musicians- part 1- M.I.A.

Recently I attended a concert by the electronica musician M.I.A. and I plan to attend a concert in N.Y.C. on July 20 by Brooklyn artist Santogold. Both of these artists make powerful, complex, and original but not pretty music that is a must-hear. Part 2 of this article will be a review of Santogold's self-titled CD as a preview to her concert.

First, here is a review of the M.I.A. concert.

M.I.A. played the last concert of her current tour to promote the CD Kala Friday night Jun 6. Pity, because it was a wonderful live show in a very cool venue that itself resides in a fun neighborhood. The audience stands right within the former pool with traces of blue paint remaining on the bottom; the surrounding buildings have dramatic towering red-brick arches unlike any swimming pool or concert venue I’ve ever seen.

M.I.A. is an multi-talented artist that works well on many levels and at the same time has an unpretentious air about her; this is the first time I’ve seen her live and while the music lacked some of the complexity and purity of the sound on her CDs in this setting, she and her ample retinue more than compensated with her stage presence, fashion sense, movements, rhythms and visuals.

When we arrived in broad daylight the set comprised of plastic palm trees seemed tacky but in the dark was transformed into a colorful striking set. The concert started by playing a bitingly sarcastic and very funny speech in Japanese about a minority political candidate giving a speech saying elections don’t change anything; the only alternative is to destroy the country (perhaps a comment on the cloying patriotic and religious sentiments we hear so much in politics). The visuals continued as probably the strongest visuals to accompany music that I have seen. The strong graphic patterns and colors had a direct simplicity that fit in with everything else. So often I find the visuals detracting.

In retrospect it was probably a good thing when M.I.A. was denied entry into the States as she was working on Kala. So this album was recorded outside the Music Marketing Machine and has a very original and provocative feel. Some of the music is reportedly influenced by baile funk (dance music from Rio de Janeiro).

In my opinion the songs in Kala have progressed a great deal in terms of diversity and complexity of sound, and rhythmical pizazz from her first CD Arular but songs from both CDs were well represented. Banana Skit is a short but surreal and funny song. Jimmy has a strong Bollywood (i.e. the music of Indian films) feel to it. Come Around, Bucky Done Gun, Mango Pickle Down River, Hussel, Pull up the People, World Town were other highlights. What amazed me was when she invited at least 100 audience members on stage and sang in the middle of chaos while hugging and being hugged by her fans. For other songs she brought out unpolished but exuberant and diverse performers from all over the world (I thought she introduced some of the kids as from NY but my companion thought she said they were from Nigeria); at any rate I thought they added a great deal to the communal feel of the evening.

Sunshowers from Arular remains one of my favorites with the fun lyrics:

I bongo with my lingo
and beat it like a wing yo
to the Congo, to Columbo
Can’t stereotype my thingo

The evening ended with Paper Planes, another absolute favorite from Kala while people on stage threw paper airplanes with invitations for the after party into the audience. M.I.A. has no lack of style!