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Swagga Like Us

Politically charged hip hop by M.I.A.
“Ifly like paper, get h igh like planes
If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name
If you come around here, I make 'em all day
I get one down inasecond if you wait..."
— "Paper Planes” by M.IA
In an interview in late August 2008, M.l A described the song as being a satire on immigrant stereotypes in the West "It's about people driving taxicabs all day and living in a lousy apartment and 'appearing' really threatening to society. But not being so, because, by the time you've finished working a 20-hour shift, you're so tired you (just) want to get home to the family." Gunshots and cash register ringing have been used as beats in the song, grabbing the listener's attention like superglue on practically anything.
"People could say, 'Oh my God, this song is so violent,' but at the same time, there's a war in Iraq. I felt like certain people made so much money from selling ammunition and mili tary weapons and stuff, and killed a million people, and it wasn't even an issue that was raised,” says the artiste. She has expressed surprise at the song's wide commercial success, telling Rolling Stone in October 2008, "I always took pride in being a little underground — it really is a very unlikely record to cross over.”
And cross over it did. So much so that the phrase "swagga (swagger) like us” has become ubiquitous in the hip -hop scene.
For those who don't know already, M.I A aka Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam is a British singer/rapper/songwriter/producer ofSri Lankan Tamil descent who has,
over the past three or four years, synthesised a stunning electronic gumbo composed of hip hop, electro, Jamaican dancehall, dashes of punk and a myriad other international musical styles.
"Paper Planes” (from M.IA.'s second studio album "Kala”) is also featured in the film "Slumdog Millionaire." The song was nominated for the Record of the Year at the 51st Grammy Awards.
Listening to her tracks four or five
times you say, "Okay, this is awful -the songs don't go anywhere. Is she speaking English? And what's with her singing voice?”
Until, that is, you finally notice yourself shamelessly squawking along with her hook-laden, foottappingnumbers.
When she was six months of age, Arulpragasam's family moved back to their native Sri Lanka from Lon don. Motivated by his wish to support the Tamil militancy on the
island, her father became a political activist, adopting the name Arular. The first years of her life were marked by displacement. Contact with her father was strictly limited, as he was in hiding from the Sri Lankan army. Eventually she, her two siblings and mother Kala moved back to London where they were housed as refugees. It was in the late '80s, on a council estate in Mitcham (South London), that Arulpragasam began to learn English. Her alias, M.IA, stands for Missing in Action.
About her politically charged music, M.IA. says, "People don't realise that I had to come from a village in Sri Lanka to get here. So the journey is about the journey itself, not just about doing music...Nobody wants to be dancing to political songs. Every bit of music out there that's making it into the mainstream is really about nothing. I wanted to see if I could write songs about something important and make it sound like nothing. And it kind of worked.,.1 haven't heard honesty in music for so long and this is how I feel, and this is what I think. I was just being as raw as possible.
"I wanted to make music that you felt in your gut...You can't separate the world into two parts like that, good and evil. Terrorism is a method. But America has successfully tied all these pockets of independence struggles, revolutions and extremists into one big notion of terrorism. You can't grab people by the neck and choke them and then complain they're kicking you. If you're going around oppressing people, they will fightback.”
Compiled by Kanm Waheed