For a good while now I’ve been
searching for clear footage of
M.I.A.’s performance at the 2009
Grammy Awards, intrigued by
the quite mythological reverence
articles that describe the dignified
spectacle of it all. While a filtered
recording of the ceremony on
Dailymotion scratched the itch,
I was in awe when I saw it unfold
in crystal clear definition about
halfway through the documentary
“MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A.”
Enter Mathangi Arulpragasam,
her polka dot top making no effort
to hide her nine-months-pregnant
belly, swaggering onto that stage.
She just barely got through “I fly
like paper, get high like planes”
before a hard cut to grainy, visceral
newsreel footage of an airport
bombing in Sri Lanka.
Harsh juxtapositions like this lie
at the core of “MATANGI / MAYA
/ M.I.A.,” a glitchy depiction of the
rapper / singer / producer / activist
M.I.A., directed by her longtime
friend Steve Loveridge. Comprised
mainly of heaps of archival footage
pulled from over two decades of
her life, the film is a comprehensive
delve into the life of M.I.A., a
polarizing figure in her own right,
behind the music and beyond the
stage.
Like many others, I’ve always
been a fan of M.I.A.’s catalogue
— no one has even come close
to her masterful ability to fuse
hip-hop, electronic and world
music into a compelling product
entirely specific to both herself and
outsider, immigrant experience
— but have never known how to
reconcile with her politics. Sure,
I can appreciate the impact her
monumentally exceptional albums
Arular and Kala had on popular
music, but I simply cannot fully
understand the power dynamics
at play in Sri Lanka, her home
country, as someone born and
raised in the comfort of the United
States.
In
portraying
such
an
atypical popstar like M.I.A., the
documentary offers an objective
look at her life: where she came
from, the environment in which
she was raised and the personal
reasoning behind all her opinions
that often warrant the moniker
of
“terrorist”
from
American
media. It does this by employing
her music mostly as background
accompaniment.
M.I.A.
knows
she will be remembered for more
than her discography, and she
wants that; “MATANGI / MAYA
/ M.I.A.” understands this and lets
the artist take center stage with
little to no obstruction from the
documentarian.
Loveridge must have thanked
his lucky stars M.I.A. wanted to
be a filmmaker when she grew
up, because there is a wealth
of homemade videos from her
childhood
and
teenage
years
which gives the doc a quite holistic
quality. There’s footage of her
shooting the shit with her friends
during her time at Central Saint
Martins Colleges, there’s footage
of her producing songs with then-
boyfriend Diplo, there’s footage
from a tour with friend and Elastica
frontwoman Justine Frischmann.
It’s safe to say either M.I.A. or
someone else was filming every
major life event of hers. Rarely does
Loveridge opt for showing more
contemporary
interviews
with
the artist; he lets real life speak for
itself.
The documentary follows a
somewhat linear structure, but
it often returns to a trip M.I.A.
took to Sri Lanka before she was
engulfed by the public eye. The
M.I.A. depicted in these pre-
Arular
days
is
affectionately
referred to as Maya, a young girl
struggling to come to terms with
her own displaced identity. In
these vignettes, you see the deep-
set reasoning behind her views
and come to empathize with her
fellow Tamils, who were brutally
oppressed by the government and
lived in constant fear. “MATANGI
/ MAYA / M.I.A.” never tries to
push an agenda. It only wants the
viewer to understand the deadly
pressure
cooker
environment
which fueled M.I.A.’s impassioned
rhetoric and the ignorance that
comes with labeling her as a
hypocritical terrorist sympathizer.
There is a bit of slant when
it comes to portraying M.I.A.’s
critics, but it is often a symptom of
righteous anger. The documentary
leaves the viewer sharing in
that anger, as it’s hard not to
be mad at Lynn Hirschberg for
misrepresenting her in a New York
Times profile or Bill Maher for
being patronizing and essentially
telling her to stick to music in a
nationally
televised
interview.
There is also an insane montage
surrounding
her
performance
at a Super Bowl halftime show
where she flipped off millions of
viewers. M.I.A. walking through
the tunnel to “The Message” with
the audience aware she’s about to
willingly piss off a sizeable chunk
of white America proves she is
more punk rock than any of us.
While one can’t help leaving the
theater thinking the documentary
was
slightly
disjointed,
“MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A.”
is an unapologetic exploration
of one of the 21st century’s most
important artists, standing out
in the world of carefully curated
music documentaries. You may
hate M.I.A.’s politics, and if so, the
documentary won’t do anything
to change that. But like it or not,
M.I.A. has earned her place as one
of the baddest girls in music and
doesn’t care for anyone’s attempts
to shut her down. She’s going to
keep doing what she wants, and do
it well.
‘MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A.’
paints an electric portrait
ROBERT MANSUETTI
Daily Arts Writer
FILM REVIEW
ABRAMORAMA
“MATANGI
/ MAYA /
M.I.A.”
Abramorama
Michigan Theater
Last week, I read about Cardi
B’s paid performance at the bar
mitzvah of Ryan Lutnick, the son
of Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor
Fitzgerald. Apparently, Cardi was
paid around $500,000 to attend
the event — she performed, took
photographs with some of the
guests and even posted about the
event on her Instagram account.
While I am no particular fan
of Cardi’s music, I was still fairly
upset to hear about this. I like
to think of musicians as being
separate from the pressures of the
market. Whether it be the most
abstract, academic sound art or
the most popular, low-budget
SoundCloud rap, I like to think that
musicians are never entirely reliant
on money. I like to think that their
performance at an event cannot be
bought by the highest bidder.
Ultimately, I worry that in
taking money to appear at a party,
Cardi discredits her own work as
something that can be bought and
sold — something with no artistic
value independent of its monetary
value. It is no longer a vehicle for
self-expression but a vehicle for
profit generation.
Now, I will of course concede
that it is not my place to make grand
statements about Cardi’s music; I
am far from the biggest fan of rap
and popular music. And culturally,
as a white male from Westchester,
N.Y. studying classical music, I
think few would perceive me to
be Cardi’s usual, if not intended,
audience.
Nevertheless, I think it is
important
to
think
critically
about the culture changes that the
internet has brought to previously
geographically (and I would argue
demographically) contained art
forms.
Anyone
with
Internet
access can now consume any music
that they desire. Art is becoming
democratized.
And
there
is
perhaps no better example than
the integration of rap and hip hop
music into the larger pop music
lexicon.
What I worry about is the line
between cultural appropriation
and genuine cross-cultural interest
that often gets blurred in this era of
democratized art. A good example
of this cross-cultural appropriation
is
Duke
Ellington’s
“Jungle
Jamboree” spectacle. As I learned
in musicology last year, Ellington
gave a much-criticized televised
performance in what was deemed
“jungle” attire — racist Flintstones-
esque attire modeled after the
stereotypical “primitive African”
musician. Ellington received a lot
of criticism for this attire but also
a lot of fame. And while I think it
is hard to fault Ellington for doing
this, it is easy to fault the culture
that sought out this performance
for encouraging Ellington to do
this.
On a much larger scale, I fear the
same about Cardi’s general cultural
presence, at least in the cultural
circles in which I witness her being
referenced. I fear that she has been
used in popular as a connotatively
distinct “other,” as a dog-whistle to
those that take pleasure in noting
her mannerisms that fall outside
the mainstream.
Cardi’s appearance as co-host
on Jimmy Fallon’s show last year,
for example, was a particularly
awful example of this. She made
some jokes on the show that were
funny both to her and the audience.
But most of the time, I noticed,
this upper class majority-white
audience was laughing not with
her but at her. They laughed at her
funny pronunciations, her strange
answers to Fallon’s questions and
her general “otherness.”
It is important, I will note,
to differentiate between forced
expression and self-expression.
Cardi does seem to be expressing
herself in these appearances and I
do not get the sense that she does so
as a means of conforming to defined
cultural
expectations.
Much
like Ellington, however, I think
this undertow of stereotypical
“otherness” is very much present,
if not in the artist than in the
audience.
The best example of this on
campus, in my opinion, is our
Greek life culture. Full disclosure:
I am incredibly skeptical of Greek
life and am known to criticize it
frequently among friends. I rarely
walk by the frat houses on Central.
But a couple of weeks ago, when I
found myself walking there late at
night, I was struck by the music
playing at many of these frat
parties. Almost every fraternity I
passed was blaring rap music.
My
immediate
emotional
reaction was one of being upset,
but I couldn’t place where these
feelings were coming from. Then
all of a sudden it hit me. In one
of the songs I heard a particular
fraternity listening to, the main
singer said the n-word multiple
times. I’m not sure if any of these
brothers sang the word along with
the song. But I could tell that they
were consuming this because they
thought it was cool; because they
were attracted to the “otherness”
of
the
music
without
any
understanding of what it stood for.
Rap music was traditionally a
means of expression for those that
had been shut out of American
popular culture for geographic,
economic
and
demographic
reasons. It is not something to be
bought by a rich CEO for his son’s
bar mitzvah. It is not something
for a bunch of brothers in what
is historically an economically,
racially and culturally exclusive
organization to listen to while
they party. It is a genuine means of
expression for those that couldn’t
pay half a million dollars for their
family event or probably couldn’t
get into a fraternal organization.
I don’t know what the solution
to this problem is, and I don’t know
if it is my place to propose any
solution. I don’t mean to say that
Cardi should not be compensated
for her private performances or
that it is up to me to decide where
she should and should not perform.
And I don’t think it is up to me to
tell fraternity brothers what music
they can and can’t listen to.
But I do think it is my place to
call out those who engage with this
music for all the wrong reasons. I
do think it is absolutely the duty of a
white audience member at Fallon’s
show to refrain from engaging in
this stereotypical laughter at the
way that Cardi communicated
through tongue clicks or other
extra-verbal tics.
Every artist has a right to
express themselves however they
choose, but not every audience
member has a right to consume art
however they chose. It isn’t a crime
to listen to music from a different
culture, but it is inappropriate
to consume it for its “otherness”
with no understanding of its
historical underpinnings. Music
isn’t divorced from culture — every
style of music has a history behind
it, and without understanding this
history you can’t fully understand
and appreciate what you are
consuming.
Complicity & historical
awareness
DAILY COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN
SAMMY
SUSSMAN
MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW: ‘ALIEN’
Dream pop duo Beach
House
has
always
been
difficult to categorize. The
ambient sprawl of albums
like
Depression
Cherry,
Bloom and most recently 7
extends past the clear-cut
minimalism of bands like
The xx, yet also does not
quite reach the same level of
jarring starkness as artists
like
Arca.
Beach
House
fuses elements of pop and
indie rock underneath thin
layers of warped, abstract
production. Never enough to
hit the complete surrealism
of, say, FKA Twigs’ LP1,
but just enough to send
elements
of
their
songs,
the various synths, chords
and vocalizations skyward.
Beach House’s music always
seems to come at you from
a
great
distance,
resting
high
above
the
clouds.
Their most recent single
“Alien” is no different, and
its accompanying animated
video fits the song’s dream-
like quality perfectly.
“Alien”’s video showcases
a fluid progression of black
and white geometric shapes.
Much like a Rob Gonsalves
painting, the music video
plays heavily with positive
and negative space: A series
of black triangles swimming
across a white background
expands into a series of
white triangles swimming
across a black background;
a globe of shifting black and
white patterns flattens into
a solid black horizontal line;
black shapes emerge as plant
shoots, growing upward until
they extend into the horizon
like a ghostly highway. In
a similar sense to previous
animated videos “Lose Your
Smile” and “Lemon Glow,”
the point of “Alien”’s video is
not to tell an illustrated story
of the song itself, but rather
to fit the song’s slow, steady
and organic rise and fall of
tempo.
In watching the “Alien”
video, you not only get an
idea of the song’s overall tone
but also a glimpse of Beach
House’s overall essence; just
as the video seems to exist
in an alternate dimension,
so does Beach House — the
duo’s musical transcendence
warping time and space into
nonconformity.
- Shima Sadaghiyani, Daily
Music Editor
“Alien”
Beach House
Sub Pop
SUB POP
SINGLE REVIEW: ‘KING OF THE HILL’
There
was
no
way
that
a
collaboration
between
Thundercat,
BADBADNOTGOOD
and
Flying
Lotus
could
ever
live up to expectations. But
“King of the Hill” comes
close, a song released as a
single from the upcoming
Brainfeeder X compilation
of highlights and unreleased
tracks by artists on Flying
Lotus’s independent label
Brainfeeder.
If 21 Savage and MF
DOOM were ever to rap
on the same track, I would
expect the beat to sound
like the intro to “King of the
Hill”: a tonally menacing mix
of eerie bells and cartoonish
strings.
When
the
song
does
finally kick in, it’s a space
funk jam propelled forward
by the power of Thundercat’s
bass. If you don’t know who
Thundercat is, he is maybe
the best active funk bassist
right now; if you know of a
tepid or boring Thundercat
bass line, please send it my
way, because I just don’t
believe it exists.
In “King of the Hill,”
sparkling Rhodes piano keys
and
Thundercat’s
soulful
layered falsettos glide over a
pulsating bedrock of drums
and bubbly jazz bass. “The
king in his castle / The king
of the hill / Wasting his time
/ Chasing cheap thrills,”
he hums, and the resulting
melodic ambiance is the best
possible blend of all three
artists’ individual sounds.
I mean, there really isn’t
much more to say about
it.
Thundercat
is
good.
BADBADNOTGOOD is good.
Flying Lotus is good. It’s a
good song, OK? Just listen
to it.
- Jonah Mendelson, Daily
Arts Writer
“King of the Hill”
Thundercat (feat.
Flying Lotus &
BADBADNOTGOOD)
Brainfeeder
BRAINDFEEDER
Thursday, November 1, 2018 — 5
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com