M.I.A. - Aim review: ‘a bewildering array of influences’

The rapper’s fifth – and possibly final – album doesn’t always cohere but is recognisably pop
Taking aim: when MIA is good, she's good like no one else
Stephen Lovekin/Getty
Richard Godwin9 September 2016

Five albums into her recording career, Maya Arulpragasam has lost none of her talent for annoying people — recent offendees include Paris St Germain football club and Black Lives Matter — of her singularity.

MIA - Aim

The Sri Lankan rapper combines a bewildering array of musical influences, sings of issues most artists are content to ignore and yet makes something that’s still recognisably pop.

She’s at her best on Borders, a migrant anthem whose combination of compassion and defiance is pitch perfect. Dystopian organs, distended voices and drone loops form a dramatic backdrop as she takes aim at the hypocrisy of the world: “White people... what’s up with that? / Boat people... what’s up with that? / Breaking the internet... what’s up with that?”

The elements don’t always cohere so well: the Skrillex-produced Go Off places its obnoxiousness a little high in the mix. But when she’s good, she’s good like no one else. She says it will be her last. She will be missed.

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