Feb 062007
On repeated listens/views – this is crucial: please try to watch this video at least 3 times – please explain M.I.A.’s video for her new single, “Bird Flu”.
I’ve been working on it, and it makes me think of the “exotic” opening scene of a James Bond or Raiders of the Lost Ark flick. I’m drawn to rhythm and obsessive vocal approach, but then I find my mind wandering to thoughts of Adam and the Ants and, eventually, Sofia Coppola’s crap movie Marie Antoinette. Then, it all falls apart as I feel teased by the promised but not consumated cockfight and cobra action. This video is badly in need of a mongoose.
Thanks for posting this. I loved MIA’s Arular album, but I don’t think I could quote you a single lyric from it. For me the words functioned as pure sound.
I gather this was filmed in Sri Lanka, which is where MIA’s family originated (though she was born in England). I can’t claim to be knowledgeable about the percussion traditions there, but I’m fairly certain the drumming in the song, which seems to have reminded you of the Ants’ Burundi thing, is actually based on samples of Brazilian drum corps like Olodum (as heard on Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints).
You want an explanation. The song is called Bird Flu and there are birds in the video, but I can’t catch her saying anything about that subject.
From what I can catch, she’s talking about being a terror suspect because of her background, so using my imagination I’m assuming she’s playing with some kind of parallel between fear of terrorism and fear of bird flu — both mysterious and insidious forces that do not respect national boundaries. The final image in the video is a tiger icon, which I assume represents the Tamil Tigers, the resistance group her father is/was associated with.
She’s also talking about who she is and who she’s expected to be (something about denying that she’s a “rocker” or a “model”). She’s caught between cultures, and the video is a mash-up of modern and pre-modern sights.
Does that help? Am I off-base? What I wanted was more of that little boy in the orange shirt doing the jerky dance in front of a group of children.
BigSteve, I agree with you that the real star of the video was the herky-jerky kid. But I think the real *story* here isn’t Mr. Mod’s free-association metaphor hunt; it’s that world music is finally starting to happen, in a real, organic, evolutionary, non-earth shoe/Nonsuch Records kind of way. I know that’s not much of a dy-no-MITE! revelation, but it’s something we haven’t gabbed about here. Starting a few years ago with — if I recall correctly — some wack middle eastern beats on a Missy Elliott single that went huge, hip-hop has spent a *lot* of time appropriating from other cultures, and succeeding at it. I suppose I applaud all the Paul Simons and Peter Gabriels and Stings and other well intentioned white dudes for giving world music a try some time ago — but this hip-hop/world groove mash-up stuff really *works*, and it makes me happy.
PLEASE, no pince-nezzery about how Allen Toussaint was the first R&B artist to incorporate Latin rhumba/Moroccan Joujouka music into his New Orleans funk stew. I’m not interested in discussing this as a horse race.
I agree with you about this. When I first started listening to music that wasn’t Anglo-American, I was suspicious of mixtures like Afro-Celt whatever it was. I still am, to some extent, when the mixtures seem like marketing plans. I wanted the ‘pure’ stuff, but the music I imagined was pure (like African rumba) was already a blend.
Now technological advances mean that almost anyone anywhere can hear everything, and the technology to take what you’ve heard and put your own spin on it is more widely available than ever before. And you can actually disseminate it without a megacorp behind you.
I wish US listeners would open themselves up a bit more to this stuff. It would go a long way towards enlightening us and maybe relieving us of our false sense of cultural superiority.
I’m with you, Steve. And I have no idea what our moderator’s even looking for. She’s hanging out in what I presume is her old neighborhood and singing. I have no idea what a single lyric of this song says; I just brought the video to his attention because I liked this song a lot and hadn’t heard it anywhere.
But you’re absolutely right – you can hear anything now, so anyone can forge a convincing meld of styles. It’s something I think about a lot, including when I first saw this video.
I mean, “Blaze a blaze/Galang Galang Galang/ Purple haze/Galang Galang Galang” vs. “I am the walrus/goo goo g’joob,” you know what I mean?
The ‘Latin tinge’ goes back at least as far as Jelly Roll Morton, but anyway….
Did anyone see Harry Connick Jr play Lee Dorsey’s Yes We Can on the Tonight Show last night? It was pretty bad. Despite having someone from the Barbarin clan on the drums, it was singularly unfunky, possibly because the HUGE horn section (like 12 pieces maybe) upset the balance. I’m not a big fan, but I’d heard good things about Connick’s new album. He’s done some good work recently as an spokesman for New Orleans, and god knows the sentiments behind the song are apropos. It just really didn’t work.
Rick wrote:
Fear not, Townspeople, this is exactly what I’m looking for – this and more! I’m not like Bono. Keep the good stuff coming!
BigSteve, I saw that Harry Connick Jr. performance last night, and I agree with you about how bad it was. It was shockingly bad, and I felt bad feeling that way because I felt the guy had established his good intentions during the interview with Jay.
I missed the interview. One more example, including Clapton, that good intentions do not make for good music.
And just to pince nez myself, when he called out Lucien Barbarin’s name I assumed he was giving the drummer some (because Paul Barbarin was a famous N.O. drummer and because the drummer was showboating a bit), but it turns out that Lucien Barbarin was the trombone soloist. Mea culpa.
This is M.I.A.’s “BEAT IT”. Some shit’s gonna go down and she gonna be right there in the middle when the snakes and chickens come to get down! I love her. I saw her textin somebody one morning 6 months ago at 11th and Green. I told her I loved her. She looked scared.