Why MATA by M.I.A. Matangi is an awakening of conscience
The wait is over. Mia Matangi is back with 13 tracks not only for dancing. There's an essence of struggle and self-criticism in this new album that would do us all great.
It has been 6 years since the last work, AIM. It was 2016 and yes, a lifetime ago. Certainly a necessary time, a useful period to distance oneself, regenerate and focus on one's personal horizons which, in the case of MIA , pseudonym of Mathangi Maya Arulpragasam, are multiple, crowded and noisy. Mata , released for Island Records, is therefore the new album, sixth in the career of the activist artist originally from Sri Lanka . Probably the reasoned synthesis of MIA thought, a conscious flow of strong concepts aimed at destabilizing the massified collective: inequalities, monoculture, consumerism, immigration controlled by the West, manipulation of reality by the media and fragmented culture and bipolar of the Internet. In Sanskrit Mata means Mother, but also goal and martyr. This is why MIA's new album is an invitation to awaken consciences through a confrontation on the contrary, not with the outside world, but with the deeper and more personal one.
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Change but remember who you are, become part of a larger community to no longer act as just an individual. It's not all about you.
From MIA's interview on The Zane Lowe Show on the Apple Music channel
In this inner journey with one's contemporary self, paralyzed by continuous stimuli and inconsistencies, injustices and nonsense, MIA puts the opposition of spirituality to the ego, the number one enemy, at the center of the debate in the tireless search for truth. This can be understood in The One, the first single released in the spring, in which it can be seen transcending into the colors of a giant pink water lily in the middle of the green lake from which relaxed chant-rapping "I am what the children will imitate trying to intercept the message to make them grow". And it is also defined in Popular , a critical piece on influencing culture and self-branding through social media. In the video clip directed by Arnaud Bresson MAI is the robotic avatar version of MIA, dressed in zebra and wearing the standard bucket hat, from which she absorbs every attitude of the original with the intention of increasing success and visibility. The effect is devastating: in the end it becomes clear who will win.
Scroll down to find out all about Mata, MIA's latest record
The alternative modern aesthetic of MIA in Mata
The experience of MIA, born in England of Tamil parents, who returned to Sri Lanka immediately afterwards to then flee the civil war and return to the United Kingdom as a refugee, has meant that the approach to the content of her work as an artist - she is a at Central Saint Martins in London in fine arts - both a mash-up of languages coming from "outside", low-fi, random and free as is sound. This can be understood very well in the documentary made with footage shot by MIA itself and released in 2018 MIA - The bad girl of music (Matangi / Maya / MIA) directed by Stephen Loveridge. If decontextualization is the lived experience of an immigrant, even for someone like her, it is the natural instinct of a diasporic identity that stirs her thoughts. Thus the artistic approach is guided by the destabilizing effects of the online which at the beginning of the new millennium have overwhelmed and seduced everyone. His is a mestizo pastiche of bhangra, a Punjab sound mixed with Western electronica, which lets itself be carried away by the Jamaican groove transplanted to London, by rap and punk (in ΛΛ Λ Y Λ , 2010). From the clash of the cash registers of Paper Planes (Kala, 2007) to the alarm sirens, Tamil voices return in Mata with Navz-47 in the dance track Putthhi , while the backing vocals of children in 100% Sustainable , almost a cappella children's voices recorded in raw quality, are ready to soften and awaken ancient memories in those who listen to them. In this way the contaminations of MIA, pre internet and post addiction, continue to be pure avant-garde of transmedia communication: the message, the intention and the sound are conveyed through a unified vision. In 2012 the curator Shwetal Patel called MIA's work a living gesamtkunstwerk for having transcended her background in many ways: from visual artist to singer there is no difference and this makes her an authentic global pop star.