Fridays Music Clip: M.I.A: "Born Free"

Here in New Zealand today is the day of The Big Day Out. This is a huge, day long, music festival attended by 45,000 people featuring a range of international and national artists. The international artists continue on to do a series of additional concerts in Australia.

This means that the international musicians get to do a whole lot of concerts in a short space of time, and presumably not have to pay for things like they would if they were to stage their own shows. In short perhaps it is a cheaper and easier way to get down to this neck of the woods, promote their music and keep the fans happy.

Why is this relevant?
Today the British artist M.I.A is headlining in the Boiler Room at the Big Day Out. TV3 journalist and all round classic dude David Farrier did an interview with her < http://www.3news.co.nz/Big-Day-Out-interview---MIA/tabid/303/articleID/195201/Default.aspx > (copy and paste people) which reminded me that she did have a very controversial year, in which one of her videos was heavily critised and censored all over the show.

M.I.A is the stage name for Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam, a British woman of Tamil descent. She comes from a politically active family and is very focused on bringing the plight of the Tamil people, her people, to the front and centre as much as she can. She talks in the Farrier interview about 2010 being a very tough year for her.

She released a music video / short film (initially via WikiLeaks) called "Born Free" in April 2010. This song was written by M.I.A and the film directed by French director Romain Gavras. The controversy the surrounds the film is that it is full of violence and the concept of ethnic cleansing, in this case the cleansing of the Ging-er Race.
In the UK (and certainly also in the colonies as well) this metaphor has relevance and connectivity due to the heavy Celtic connection - we all understand the gentle ribbing that redheads get here. In the US they did not get the metaphor and instead seemed to take it at face value. The video is still banned on youtube. It is graphic, and 9 minutes long, so be warned.

The film garnished an intense backlash, particularly in the USA, as they seemed to take offense that it was a crack at their foreign and/or internal policy. Rather than scratching the surface and doing some investigative research into the artist, she got hauled over the coals. It would have been so much easier for the producers of the film to just remove the Amercian flags from the uniforms - not sure why they chose to focus on that so heavily as it just makes the whole thing a little confusing, unless it was their strategy to go for the controversy and banning to garnish support.

When one learns of M.I.A's personal history it becomes very obvious very quickly that it is rather a commentary on the plight of the Tamil people, and oppressed people worldwide.

Here is a quick run down of the video if you dont have the 9 minutes to watch it.
From the oracle that is Wikipedia:

A short film featuring the song, which doubles as its music video, was written by M.I.A. and directed by French director Romain Gavras. The film was shot in Los Angeles and Lancaster, California in mid January 2010. It was released on M.I.A.'s website on April 26, 2010, three days after the release of the song.

The film depicts a U.S. military SWAT team, driving up to a building and staging a raid, during which they ignore a man sitting in a room smoking a crack pipe, beat a couple engaged in coitus, and then force a young red-headed man violently into a detainee transport vehicle along with other red-heads that have been rounded up. The detainees are then driven out to the desert, treated brutally, and forced to run across a live minefield. During the course of events, a young red-headed boy is shot through the head, and another is blown to pieces after stepping on a live mine while the soldiers continue to chase, beat, and shoot at others.

The film for "Born Free" has been widely described as political allegory, drawing parallels to many indigenous resistance movements around the world. During the video, a mural is seen depicting armed red-headed men and the slogan "Our day will come", the historic motto of the Irish Republican Army (Tiocfaidh ár lá). Also depicted are keffiya-wearing red-headed young people who throw rocks and glass bottles at the armored vehicles transporting the detainees, in an apparent reference to the iconic images of the Second Palestinian "Intifada".

My thoughts, I just wish I had organised things to get to see her live. Would have been epic. Oh and Tool is playing too. Bummer.