Oct05-Contest3_themi..

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Thursday, September 29, 2005
Section B
THURSDAY
ALL YOUR ARTS — BRIEFLY
 TODAY
ROB SKORO
THE WHOLE begins this year’s
“Making Music” series with Twin
Cities musician Rob Skoro. But
Skoro won’t simply play the earnest,
easy melodies from his latest, “That
These Things Could Be Ours.” He’ll
also sit down for an interview and
answer questions from the
audience.
 8 p.m. today
 The Whole in Coffman Union
 Free, all ages
IS THE WORLD READY  FRIDAY
FOR M.I.A.’s FEROCITY? MINNESOTA
ROLLERGIRLS
ALTHOUGH THE new film “Roll
Bounce” won’t admit it (see Page
4B), women rock at roller-skating.
Friday, the Minnesota RollerGirls, a
“hard-hitting and speed lovin” roller
derby league will put on its
brand of extravaganza.
 7:30 p.m. Friday
 Roy Wilkins Auditorium,
171 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul
 $10 in advance, $12 at the door
 (651) 989-5151 for tickets
 TUESDAY
ATMOSPHERE
APPEARANCE
YOU MIGHT have heard of
Atmosphere. They’re supposed to
be pretty big these days. And their
new album, “You Can’t Imagine
How Much Fun We’re Having,”
comes out Tuesday. Ant and Slug
are celebrating with a midnight,
in-store appearance at the nowbigger-and-prettier Fifth Element.
They’re giving away free stuff and
signing other stuff.
 Midnight Tuesday
 Fifth Element, 2411 Hennepin
Ave. S., Minneapolis
 (612) 377-0044 for more
information
RADIO K
 TOP
SEVEN PLAYLIST
WHERE TO GO
WHAT: M.I.A. with Spank Rock
WHEN: 8 p.m. today
WHERE: Fine Line Music Café,
318 First Ave. N., Minneapolis
TICKETS: $18, 18-plus
CONTACT: (612) 338-8100
Gwen Stefani, always ahead of the fashion
curve, has given up on glitzy cell phone ringtones, catwalks and outrageous clothing for a
style more, well, revolutionary. She has replaced
the Harajuku girls with the Tamil Tiger girls.
OK, so the Hollaback Girl hasn’t really embraced the Sri Lankan rebel group some label
as terrorist. But Stefani will bring Maya Arulpragasam, known as M.I.A., as her opening act
in November.
Arulpragasam is not a Tamil Tiger. But her
father is.
The Tamil Tigers are a separatist group in Sri
Lanka that seeks an independent state, and since
the 1980s, has used suicide bombings as a means
to get its point across.
Arulpragasam moved from Sri Lanka to London at the age of 11, but the influence of the Tigers is obvious in M.I.A.’s music. Her mixtape
with DJ Diplo was titled “Piracy Funds Terrorism,” and on her debut album “Arular,” the cover is sprinkled with bright colored collages of
bombs, tanks, guns and even planes.
“I feel comfortable representing a Third World
aesthetic,” Arulpragasam said.
For Stefani, with a large fan base of suburban
teens who no doubt get concert ticket money
from their pro-Bush parents, bringing M.I.A. on
tour is a daring move. Or maybe it just seems bizarre how quickly M.I.A. has moved up from the
underground.
She released her first album only six months
ago and didn’t perform live until the beginning of
this year. Now she has a guest spot on the new
Missy Elliot record.
But before we can try to comprehend how
M.I.A. went from blogs to stadiums and what this
says about pop culture, first we have to understand M.I.A..
The first time you hear M.I.A. compares to
the first time you read Malcolm X. Or see the
film “The Battle of Algiers.” Or listen to Public
Enemy. It sounds exactly like what you’ve been
waiting for.
M.I.A. sounds new even though a lot of the
music isn’t really. Instead, it’s the combination
of music that makes it seem so exciting. But,
it’s more complex than simply taking different
influences.
Perhaps
more than any
artist, M.I.A.’s
music encapsulates a sense of a
boundary-less world.
On the song “Bucky Done Gun” she samples
baile funk taken from the ghettos of Rio de Janeiro that originally came from bass music in Miami.
There’s dancehall influence too — not from Jamaica, but from her neighbors in West London.
The pounds of steel drums found all over “Arular” symbolize sounds associated with “world music” (whatever that means), but the steel drum
sound comes not from an actual drum, but from
a Roland MC-505.
“I tried to do music where I was,” Arulpragasam said. So where was she? England? Sri Lanka?
On “Bucky” M.I.A. tells New York, Brazil and
Kingston all to quiet down. She needs to make
her own sound.
“Arular” is not just a clash of First World electronics against Third World rhythms. The music
is a constant give and take, a circle.
This makes it hard to define M.I.A.. Is it electro? Is it world? Is it hip-hop?
“I made something that doesn’t fit,” Arulpragasam said. “In England, that was a negative
thing. They didn’t know where to put it; how to
market it.”
M.I.A. says it best in “Sunshowers” when she
raps, “From Congo to Colombo/Can’t stereotype
my thing, yo.”
Before, genres and marketability played significant roles in music careers. Not so much
anymore, or at least there’s an alternative — the
Internet.
Here borders, boundaries and genres have
dissolved and become irrelevant. And it makes
sense that here is where M.I.A.’s buzz began.
There was talk of “Arular” being the best album
of the year before it even came out.
“On the Internet, there’s a whole breed of people into a load of different stuff. And if this stuff
couldn’t find a place before, we’ve found another
way. I believed in that,” Arulpragasam said.
M.I.A.’s popularity on the Web did not come
solely from traditional music journal sites. A lot
of the talk came from blogs and message boards
where thousands of different voices could dissect
M.I.A..
“It added to what a musician is to me,” Arulpragasam said. “The Internet is really a platform,
and it’s a different way of existing as an artist.”
While most of what is found on M.I.A. on the
Web is positive, there are plenty of detractors.
Arguments have broken out on message boards
about M.I.A.’s content.
For example: “Quit bending all my fingo/Quit
beating me like you’re Ringo/You wanna go?/You
wanna winna war?/Like PLO I don’t surrendo.”
Should she be saying these things? Should we
be listening?
Those angered by M.I.A.’s lyrics, believe Arulpragasam means it. They think she is a terrorist.
Or, at least a terrorist sympathizer, which in these
color-coded terror alert days, means basically the
same thing.
And perhaps M.I.A.’s lyrics seem real because
of her brown skin.
We weren’t afraid of Johnny Cash even though
he told us he shot a man in Reno just to watch
him die, right?
And yet we wouldn’t want to cross paths with
Ice Cube in Compton, right?
“This is what is happening,” Arulpragasam explained. “I’m just pointing it out and it’s all right to
be that person. It’s not like I’m the person doing
crazy shit.”
As an artist, Arulpragasam says she believes
she has an obligation to speak for those whose
voices have been ignored.
“I’m here to point out the other side, to say
look at what’s going on over here,” she said.
But has mainstream America built a strong
enough tolerance post-9/11 where we can now
listen to the other side?
Arulpragasam says it doesn’t necessarily matter whether the teenyboppers at the Stefani concert are ready for her.
“As artists, our mission is to get what we think
out there as far as possible,” she said. “It’s a good
thing if I can penetrate the media and present
some thoughts to people who have never heard
them. It might hit someone who gets it. We’ll see
what happens.”
She added, “No matter what, we do have to try
and fuck shit up.”
A&E EDITOR
Jenna Ross
(612) 627-4070, ext. 3239
jross@mndaily.com
ASSISTANT A&E EDITOR
Erin Adler
(612) 627-4070, ext. 3236
eadler@mndaily.com
CORRECTIONS:
feedback@mndaily.com
2301 University Ave. S.E.
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INDEX
CLASSIFIEDS ...............
CROSSWORD ...............
NETWORK ....................
DR. DATE .....................
ANNA BERKEN, ILLUSTRATION/LAYOUT AND MIRANDA MOOS, GRAPHICS/LAYOUT
BY KERI CARLSON
kcarlson@mndaily.com
1. HALLOWEEN ALASKA
“Drowned”
2. DEVENDRA BANHART
“Support Our Troops”
3. THE DANDY WARHOLS
“All the Money or the Simple Life
Honey”
4. SIGUR ROS
“Glosoli”
5. IRON & WINE / CALEXICO
“Red Dust”
6. I SELF DIVINE
“Ice Cold”
7. THE NEW
PORNOGRAPHERS
“Twin Cinema”
8B
11B
11B
11B
 PAGE 2B
DYLAN WAS HERE –
RIGHT HERE
Martin Scorcese’s new film
documents that Bob Dylan indeed
walked down University Avenue, and
positively sauntered down Fourth
Street
 PAGE 3B
KEILLOR DOES IT ALL
He writes, he speaks, and now he
dances. Well, Garrison Keillor isn’t
exactly a dancer, but he and his
“Guy Noir” character do take on
ballet in a new show.