SRI LANKAN BORN RAPPER’S FOURTH ALBUM ‘MATANGI’ WILL NOW BE RELEASED ON APRIL 15th

As a default, I take news like this as bad. Whenever a record label tells an artist to go back and tweak a record to their liking, it’s never a good thing. According to M.I.A., she was told by Interscope Records that her upcoming fourth album, ‘Matangi’ was “too positive” and that she should “darken it up a bit”. Ugh. How about you trust that’s SHE’S the artist and she knows what she’s doing? AKA, tell Jimmy Iovine to suck it. As if her music needs to fit into their marketed image of her.

Rolling Stone quotes the artist as saying, “I thought I’d finished it. I finished it and then I handed the record in, like a couple of months ago. It’s like ‘We just built you up as the public enemy No. 1 and now you’re coming out with all this positive stuff.”

The delicious part? It’s M.I.A., sillies! When asked how she planned on responding to Interscope’s feedback, she replied, “I’m taking my time to decide what they mean.”

Now the album will come out on April 15th, which interestingly aligns with the Tamil New Year. I suggest she doesn’t change a thing, tell the label she did, and then hand it back in—right at the last minute. They’ll be like, “Much better! Thanks!” Sometimes people just need to tell you what to do, it makes them feel better, more involved—even if you never heed their advice. We all win!

One of my favorite M.I.A songs: