Thursday, June 7, 2007

Review of MIA's "Kala" album

Check out this article for a full review of MIA's new album Kala dropping Agust 20th.


****You originally intend to get Timbaland to produce the album, right?
“Yeah. He came and met me last summer, but it was so difficult for me to co-ordinate anything from my side. In the end, I’d started recording drummers and music in India and then I went to Trinidad and Africa and the shape of my album was becoming something else. Eight months into me recording, I already had 10 songs. That’s when I got the (work) visa (to enter America). The week before I was with Liberian kids, trying to understand their culture, then I was in Virginia with my own personal chef in a 5-star hotel. It was so mad. I was with Timbaland, who I know is a legend, and I love him, and have always wanted to work with him…but by the time I got there I was just too far-gone in my own worldly sound.”

Do you think that most American hip-hop’s has lost that raw edge?
“Yep, because it’s a business. When I first moved to Brooklyn I spent a day looking for apartments. Before I’d even secured one, on that day I met every kid selling me beats…I ended up in six different houses. Kids were dealing beats instead of drugs. People had so much advice, and gave me so many lectures about how much of a grind it was, and how much of a business it is. Loads of people, especially rappers and producers, that I’ve worked it say to me, ‘Maya make sure two things don’t happen to you: 1. You fall in the love 2. You have babies: because that fucks up the game’. It’s just so industrial. I was like, ‘wow, you guys have really turned this shit into a proper business’. And when I met all these people giving me beats, the random kids were business kids. It’s not creativity coming out of necessity but business coming out of necessity. That’s what hip-hop was becoming. When hip-hop came out, white people were the ones rolling in big cars, with ladies and panthers on a leash…it was like Rod Stewart or whatever. Then the pendulum swings to some kid in the hood, wearing shorts stood next to a speaker by the lamppost, making music. Now hip-hop is Rod Stewart. The pendulum isn’t now gonna swing back to some kid on the street by the speaker in America, it’s gonna swing to somewhere in Africa, or China. Because that’s what we haven’t heard yet.” *****

One of the best interviews I've ever read about her. Definitely check it out. Big thanks to Jakea for the link!

1 comment :

  1. does this mean there are no tim tracks on her new album?!

    ReplyDelete

 
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