A Story To Be Told

The singer, fashion designer, visual artist, songwriter and political activist, otherwise known as M.I.A., will release a new album on 13 July. Bad luck? Well, that remains to be seen. The album, called /\/\ /\ Y /\ (the stylised form of Maya) has twelve tracks and has been characterised by M.I.A. as being "schizophrenic", and a form of making people "exercise their critical-thinking muscles". Throw in the fact that YouTube put a restriction on the access to the video for the song Born Free, and you can already expect a certain degree of tension. Well...

Let's start with a fact. If you haven't realise it until now, when you say M.I.A., you say "diversity". The girl has a lot of things to say, and a lot of ways to show us what she has to say, and that reflects in her music. She's an admirer of the freedom of speech and act, and this is easy to see. Her new album album does nothing but prove this, lyrically as well as instrumentally. "You want me be somebody who I'm really not", M.I.A. complains on XXXO, and you can feel that no one who tries to impose her some limits will get out alive. The main lyrical theme on this album is represented by the immersion of technology in everyday life and by information politics (and from this point of view the release wants to be a real statement against the danger represented by the lack of alternative news sources).

Musically speaking, the album is a cocktail of electric synths, hip-hop bounces, reggae rhythms (yeah, exactly, jump to It Takes A Muscle for further information) and ethereal futuristic sounds with M.I.A.'s vocals on top of it, (just like a cherry) claiming "Yo, man, listen carefully to this!" Nice flow, you might think (and this is highly proven especially on Steppin' Up, which was most likely written to give a new meaning to the word "electric"), but you'll be wrong. Dead wrong. Because she can also sing. And here is the part when I must warn you not to take the word "addiction" too lightly. At least not when it comes to a song like the futuristic dreamy ballad Space.

/\/\ /\ Y /\ is not a release you can simply ignore. This is what a overcautious person would have said. But I'll just say this album is great. End of. And now punch me for using cliches again. I can take it.


*photo courtesy of M.I.A.'s official site