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M.I.A.
a.k.a. Maya Arulpragasam
It's M.I.A.'s first day off in who knows how long, but
she's in New York and the woman is on a mission. "I
need a 505," she says with characteristic focus.
"I need a Roland MC-505." Like many uncommon
objects in M.I.A.'s universe the 505 holds special meaning
for her, and finding one marks a return to her roots-the
low-end discontinued drum machine is the one she used
to make her first beats when starting out on her musical
path in 2002.
Quickly that path has become the talk of tastemaking
music magazines and the fickle world of blogs and internet
chatrooms. There a rough outline of her life has started
to take shape: A childhood spent in the shadows of Sri
Lanka's civil war before becoming a refugee and settling
with her mother in London's crime-rattled council estates.
Hearing Public Enemy for the first time. Graduating
in fine art and film from London's prestigious Central
Saint Martins College and emerging as a one-to-watch
visual artist. A friendship with electroclash icon Peaches,
who introduced her to the lo-fi mysteries of the Roland
MC-505. "I had the 505, a shitty 4-track recorder
and tiny mic," M.I.A. told a journalist in 2004.
"I could do it in my bed...At the end of my first
week I made a beat. At the end of the second week I
was doing vocals. By the end of the second month I could
write a whole song, and by month three I was actually
getting it right."
Which brings us again to the point at hand - the music.
M.I.A.'s early underground singles "Galang"
and "Sunshowers" shocked listeners with sharp
lyrics about urban unease thrown on top of raw beats
you could dance to, and in late 2004 as she finished
her debut album for XL Recordings she released a hip-hop
style promotional mixtape showcasing her distinctive
vocal style and quirky rapping over dancehall rhythms
and instrumental tracks by platinum artists like Missy
Elliot and Jay-Z. As a collaboration with another buzz
artist (Philly's DJ/producer Diplo) the Piracy Funds
Terrorism vol 1 mixtape had roughly the same effect
as gasoline on an open fire; the project made many critics'
"best of" list for 2004 while simultaneously
cementing her proper album Arular as the most highly
anticipated release of 2005. She wasn't done; M.I.A.'s
live show backed up the buzz with a packed schedule
that saw her rocking every mic she touched, from the
tiny stage of a dank Ukrainian social club in Philly
to an electrifying performance in front of a multitude
of fans at this spring's Coachella festival. When Arular
dropped in April the M.I.A. explosion took on atomic
proportions.
But M.I.A. wants you to know that her story is only
beginning to be told. It would be an error to mistake
the positive press and rave reviews-and yes, the hype
around her-for who she is as a person and as an artist,
she explains, mainly because she's always evolving and
creating. "Because I was doing something that some
people thought was fresh and new and exciting there
was this idea that I was gonna bring forth a big Ten
Commandments type of statement or something," she
says. "But people don't realize 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."
Thankfully
the next stage of the journey entails just that: more
music. M.I.A.'s restless search for what seems like
the last Roland MC-505 on the island of Manhattan is
the key to her plans for another mixtape and the groundwork
for a second album. "I know what I like. It's something
loud with a bass line and it's around people with a
spirit. That's what it's all about to me. It ain't about
music on a laptop, it's about what's happening in the
world.
"My process is 50-50-I absorb a lot of stuff from
the environment around me, but I also need space to
create as an artist," she continues. "In the
past few months I've taken in everything around me,
and now what I need to do is rent a cave and hide away
to get some work done. Can you rent a cave in New York?"
Finding a cave in the city isn't so difficult. The question
is, can you wire it for a 505?
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