"I wanted to see if I could write songs about something important and make it sound like nothing. And it kind of worked."
That's the way pop artist M.I.A. described her music to Nirali Magazine more than 10 years ago. Over the weekend, the music video for her new single "Borders" proved she's still after the same goal. This time, the "Paper Planes" artist is using her catchy beats to get you to pay attention to an issue that for many seemed very far away until it recently overtook the news cycle: the refugee crisis.
It's an uncomfortable music video to watch. "Freedom, 'I'dom, 'Me'dom, where's your 'We'dom?," M.I.A. sings as the camera pans to hundreds of people running in straight lines behind her. The refugees climb fences, crowd boats and seem to stand on top of each other - artistically directed scenes made to mimic the reality playing out across the world.
In her lyrics, M.I.A. gets to the heart of the distance between Westerners far removed from the crisis and the problems faced by actual migrants. Punctuating every word with "What's up with that?" she sings, "borders, politics, police shots, identities, your privilege, broke people, boat people ..." Then subs out those words for social media slang: "Queen, killing it, slaying it, your goals, being bae, making money, breaking Internet ..."
"(Expletive) 'em when we say we're not with them," she sings, "we solid and we don't need to kick them."
Mathangi Arulpragasam (that's M.I.A.'s real name) built her reputation on politically charged lyrics, but the topic of refugees is deeply personal; she was once a migrant herself.
Her childhood was spent in a war-torn Sri Lanka, where her family was often in hiding because they were Tamil, an ethnic group in Southeast Asia. Her father was a founding member of the Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students, a group that fought for an independent state for the Tamil people. According to interviews, M.I.A. barely knew him. She moved with her mother and brother from house to house as the civil war escalated around them.
In 1986, they successfully applied for refugee status, escaping the war to move to London. Despite the difficulties of their life as refugees in public housing, M.I.A. learned English and, as she likes to joke, many Michael Jackson lyrics.
She wrote on Twitter on Friday that"Borders" is dedicated to her uncle, one of the first Tamil migrants to come to the U.K. "Everything I do doesn't even touch his sides," she said. "Thank you for helping my family come to England and taking us out of (Sri Lanka) and saving us."
"Borders" won't be M.I.A.'s last word on the crisis. She's working on an album, "Matahdatah," which she previewed this summer by releasing a self-directed music video filmed in India and Ivory Coast.
According to a release, the album will come out in pieces over the next few months to create a "truly global and characteristically DIY" M.I.A. experience.
