Hindu Lore to Racial Politics, MIA’s “Matangi” Delivers


Maya Arulpragasm (best known as MIA), predicted the NSA spying scandal. She is pop’s most rebellious musician. And after a delay of several years, her new album, which she has described as sounding like “Paul Simon on acid,” was finally released earlier this month. Whether or not it lives up to her characterization, Matangi—titled after MIA’s namesake, the Hindu goddess of music and the spoken word—is decidedly eclectic, ranging from reggae rhythms to club beats, hip-hop vocals to slower love songs, and Eastern instrumentation to a mainstream pop style.

An MIA album would be nothing without a complex, varied message, and Matangi delivers. It’s replete with allusions to Hindu stories and spirituality, alongside more current (if slightly outdated) pop-culture references: “YALA” (you always live again) plays off the cultural meme YOLO (you only live once) popularized by Drake’s “The Motto.” MIA’s response explores the Hindu concepts of reincarnation and karma. “YOLO?” she sings. “I don’t even know anymore…back home where I come from we keep being born again and again and again.” “Come Walk With Me,” ostensibly a song about modern love and romance, is accompanied by a an animated video of Hindu imagery.

Matangi also offers a strong (if ambiguous) political message. “Brown girl, brown girl, turn your shit down. You know America don’t want to hear your sound,” she raps on the short track “Boom.” Meanwhile, “aTENTion” was “written with all the words that have ‘tent’ in them,” she told NPR. “It’s sort of to describe the refugee philosophy—people who live in tents—because I feel like they are the modern-day untouchables…they’re faceless and placeless.” The song, weirdly enough, was written with the help of Wikileaks’ Julian Assange, who came by her London studio while she was working on his TV series. Mixed messages aside, Matangi, is everything you’d thought it would be, and gets better with every listen.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate