MIA’s album-release grabs US headlines

 Washington Post called Jaffna born music phenom, Maya Arulpragasam (popularly known as MIA) the "most innovative and dynamic pop star of her generation" as it covered the story of MIA’s release of her third album "Maya" Tuesday. The British Guardian, writing about the British singer’s popularity before the release of her album said that "she speaks out in support of Tamil citizens," and that "[h]er assertions that the Sri Lankan government is guilty of the genocide of local Tamils have not been going down well."

MIA_Maya23 "The British rapper, tastemaker and provocateur is peddling pop miasma on her third album, "Maya" — a disorienting mix of industrial clatter and digital slush that makes Public Enemy’s revolutionary bombast feel worthy of "Glee,"" the Post said in its coverage, adding, "And it’s hard to imagine anything burying Maya Arulpragasam. Since making her debut in 2004 as M.I.A., she’s posited herself as the most innovative and dynamic pop star of her generation. Sure, she’s a middling rapper and an awful dancer, but she still remains larger than life thanks to curatorial superpowers that border on Warholian. As the Internet continues to metastasize, her music has made our sprawling popscape feel both endlessly thrilling and comfortingly finite, grafting Baltimore club to Bollywood to Brazilian baile funk with a seamless cool."

Orwell’s "big brother" is the theme of one of the songs. ""The Message," the album’s opening salvo, follows those aforementioned laptop clicks with a nursery rhyme about Big Brother’s digital omnipotence. "Head bone connected to the headphones," a male voice chants. "Headphones connected to the iPhone, iPhone connected to the Internet, connected to the Google, connected to the government,"" the Post explained.

The Post made only a passing reference to the recent controversy with New York Times which insinuated that the Singer supported "terrorism" when MIA spoke on behalf of her Tamil heritage and her highlighting of the Sri Lankan states alleged massacre of 40,000 Tamil civilians.

New York Times (NYT) in a correction published in June 2010 admitted that NYT journlalist Lynn Hirschberg used quotes from an interview with Maya Arulpragasam out of context to misrepresent her views on the Tamil conflict. Hirschberg also wrote "Maya taps into her rage at the persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka to espouse violence," pointing to Maya’s lyrics "You wanna win a war?/Like P.L.O. I don’t surrender.” A media outlet commented "within the context of the song, there’s no way to interpret the lyrics this way, unless you’re coming into it with a certain agenda."

[Full Coverage]

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