MIA's Honda Advert!

[michael]

Aren't the mud hut quips about how MIA positions herself? That she's trying to get cred / attention by playing both the exotic and the "down with the poor" angles? "I come from the majority world, my music is all about my struggle, this is for my people in Sri Lanka" ... which people are disputing and taking the piss out of. I'm not sure that's somehow racist?

I certainly don't get the degree of emotion about it all... did you witness the monster thread a few months back?

 

[satanmcnugget]

i dont want to appear like i have too much of a clue...as a North American, Ive not even seen the advert yet...what's more i dont even own a TV, so im not likely to see it if/when it shows here

buuuuut, "If Ludacris was to do this, sell his tune to advertise a hummer, no-one would blink an eyelid."

with all due respect to the mighty Nina and Matt, i think the issue i have with something like this is that Ludacris doesnt go around throwing down the rhetoric of revolution and liberation the way MIA does...if he did, i wld certainly have something to say about it

i mean, as someone who also wishes to see some sort of global revolution/transformation/whatever, i certainly understand that WE ALL HAVE TO EAT, and the SYSTEM FORCES US ALL INTO CONTRADICTIONS...i dont want to appear sanctimonious...but, she isnt exactly starving...im sure the day job is paying fine...so, why go that extra mile for a lil more blingblingage?...if you consider yourself a revolutionary of some sort, you can only buy in so much before you look silly

and i dont think there is too much misogyny involved...as i said, if Ludacris were to sell a song to a huge corporation to sell a hummer, i wldnt blink an eye...if MC Common did, id have to sit up and take notice...if they were all everyday schmoes, just struggling to make rent and had to work an everyday job for a large corporation, that's an entirely different dynamic altogether



with all that said, i still LOVE her music...hardly wait for the next album

 

[dsp13]

In defence of the mia haters I don't think the "mud hut people" thing was meant as a racist remark... just a reference to her own (largely unaccepted) claim that she lived in a third world mud hut type housing situation but it is getiing pretty borderline innit. And I don't think it's about misogyny I think they just really hate her tunes. As someone said above... check the big mia thread or the british music awards thread to put it into better context.

 

[Melchior]

artists have always needed their patrons, without exception, since the dawn of civilization.
<snip>
I don't hear people crying "sell out" when Damian Hurst is sponsored by wealthy institutions?

Well, not all artists have always needed patrons. Plenty of people have made art without significant financial reward for their own pleasure and the pleasure of the people around them.

And, right or wrong, people see popular music, from rock and roll to jungle to MIA as being the inheritor of folk music, exactly the people who never had patrons and made music anyway.

The comparison to Damien Hurst is deeply flawed anyway. Hirst being sponsored by major corporations is similar to MIA being signed to a major label. Both deals are primarily about "art", and both corporations gain creditability as a result.

If Damien Hirst designed ads for Saatchi, rather than just being in their gallery, then the comparison might be valid.

The comparison is further flawed because of the different ways that music and visual art is packaged and sold. Imagine if visual artists made their money not through selling one or two works for stacks of cash but by selling millions of reproductions of their work. And then they sold the rights to reproduce that art as the new Honda paintjob. Then we could have a point of comparison.

Finally, this is a music board. If anyone posted a thread about Hirst here, it wouldn't be relevant.

(for what it's worth, I could care less about MIA. It's not about authenticity, it's about liking her music and I don't.)

 

[atomly]

i dont want to appear like i have too much of a clue...as a North American, Ive not even seen the advert yet...what's more i dont even own a TV, so im not likely to see it if/when it shows here

I saw the ad before the previews of a film here in Chicago last week.

 

[SIZZLE]

yeah I'd also like to cast my two stones against Authenticity. Who is authentic? What are your criteria? Being poor and growing up with violence? If you met some of the people you considered authentic you would realize that reality is much more complex than you think. I find this whole idea to be one of the more artistically limiting ideas out there, forcing people to play up negative stereotypes in order to be considered 'real' or 'authentic' in conversations like these. For example, if you ever hang out with any of these 'shower faced' grime artists for more than an hour you will find that they are some of the most hilarious, goofy people on earth, something which is almost never shown in their public personas since they feel they have to live up to some idea of gangsterness in order to be taken seriously as 'rappers from the hood' which I feel is a real loss and simplification.

Look at Chuck D for example, dude is intelligent, educated and grew up on Long Island (for those that don't know, NOT the hood) but because he is a brilliant artist and thinker NO ONE is questioning his realness.

And bigup to confucius, anyone who thinks being a musician, even if you are MIA is an easy way to make a living is DREAMING. If you know the economic realities, even of someone selling 70,000 records you will realize that ANY musician, especially one on an indie label blah blah blah will have to think long and hard before turning down something like this. Off of one of these license deals you can make 2 or 3 years worth of gig and release money combined, which is a big piece of security in this fickle pop culture market.

As far as MIA herself, her music is alright and I think she is positive in the sense that she is carving out a bigger pop niche for a lot of the music that people on this board like whether she is the best possible ambassador or not, which in the long run will be helpful to many artists next time they have to explain themselves to some dumbshit a+r.

 

[SIZZLE]

Just backtracked and read Rupture's blog entry on this subject, and would just say please disregard my remarks on the economics of this question and read his. He said so much better in hundreds of words what I tried to say in a few. Definitely bigup DJ /Rupture all day every day, dog is smart as hell.

 

[stelfox]

well, i didn't hear it because i didn't watch the show but i think the mud hut thing is something she actually said herself at the mercury awards. still, it makes for pretty uncomfortable reading and is open to a lot of misinterpretation as is happening here, so i don't think it's especially advisable. i'm actually starting to feel a bit uncomfortable with all the MIA hate in general. i can't stand her but i can back it up with pretty sound reasons that are a lot more rational than "oh she's selling music for adverts, therefore is the opportunist sell-out i always knew she was" or "she's not real", no matter what people like michaelangelo matos want to put on the internet about my opinions without emailing me or actually discussing the matter with me properly. There have been several prongs to this whole MIArgument and the responses she gets but here are the really important ones that i need to set out mys stall about once and for all.
1) people liking the songs as good pop tunes (fair enough, i suppose they are, whether her voice gets on my nerves or not).
2) her projecting herself and being taken up by many of her fans as an ambassador for global street music; that whole "homeless music" idea that she put forward. no, luv, all these musics have homes and something like dancehall can make its home wherever it lays its Kangol. if she was honest about her appropriations (and that's what they are. none of this is *her* music, just as none of it is mine. the difference between my take and hers is that i just don't have the balls or lack of respect necessary to say that my making a few mixtapes is in effect *giving* bashment, reggaeton, funk carioca or kwaito anything, when what is actually happening is me doing a lot of *taking* from these cultures) and opportunistism she still might have won me over, then it wouldn't been "dining out on other people's work" (as i put it) or seen as "a carpetbagger who was using "authenticity" as a signifier to get points from people who weren't waist-deep in the scenes whose sounds she was lifting from" (matos on me) because props would have been given and acknowledgements made.
3) the real/not real debate - this is a total red herring on both sides. it's not about realness vs authenticity, it's not about poppism vs rockism, it's about honesty vs cynicism and thought vs blind acceptance. i do not like MIA because i don't trust her, not because she's not *real*. what rupture does in his dj sets is about as (in)authentic as mia and i love it to bits, because it doesn't make loud grandstanding claims for itself - it just does what it does and lets the music talk. there's a whole lot of love and respect in what jace does and an infectious enthusiasm that connects all kinds of geographical and stylistic dots. MIA's music and MIA as a personality is too calculated and too busy telling you that it's doing something special to really be believable and, as a result, is a lot less graceful. (these are the same reasons i liked z-trip's uneasy listening mix much, much more than i liked anything that came out of the whole bastard pop/mash-up thing, incidentally - give me middle-american geeks who genuinely love motley crue over trendy europeans ironically playing dolly parton any day of the week.)
anyway, my point - unless you want the wolves circling with all manner of accusations of racism, misogyny etc i'd lay off all the mud hut business. also by being so binkered about what pop is and isn't you're laying yourselves open to an awful lot more (much more vaild) criticism, too. good music doesn't have to be wilfully avant-garde, doesn't have to be inaccessible to the masses and should only make you feel good about yourself in the sense of its effect on you, not because you know about it and no one else does - it shouldn't be a secret and being a gatekeeper is nothing to aspire to. thanks and good night.

 

[nonseq]

Aren't the mud hut quips about how MIA positions herself? That she's trying to get cred / attention by playing both the exotic and the "down with the poor" angles? "I come from the majority world, my music is all about my struggle, this is for my people in Sri Lanka"

So it would be better if she would be as apolitical as most other musicians?
Surely that would be worse!
Also, why are most people so sure about her referencing Tamils etc "to get cred / attention"?
How do you know it's not a genuine feeling of hers?
The Honda commercial is by no means a proof that she doesn't care about Tamils or whatever.
Moreover does it matter?
Shouldn't she be judged on the basis of her actions, rather than guesswork about her thinking?
Isn't the better criterion for an evaluation of her media performance the ideological effects?
Like:
she doesn't promote hardline anticapitalism but she does try to raise awareness about exploitation of poor people?

Basically it's the old question whether it's better to be a capitalist pig who doesn't care for poor people but at least isn't a hypocrite or to be part of the capitalist system like almost everybody, criticise it and be accused of hypocrisy, selling out etc.

 

[infinite thought]

i think the mud hut thing is something she actually said herself

.

This is what I was wondering...

anyway, my point - unless you want the wolves circling with all manner of accusations of racism, misogyny etc i'd lay off all the mud hut business

I'm a wolf now, am I?! Blimey...

There just seems a lot of slightly inexplicable resentment towards this woman for doing things that hardly make her unique: declaiming in a revolutionary style, mixing up genres in a populist way, selling her songs for advertising, making random political statements...

FWIW, I like her clumsiness and awkwardness, think Arular is a pretty good record...I'm suspicious of the way she seems to gets it in the neck, like she's not allowed to make any mistakes or something...nonseq's questions above are good ones...

 

[simon silverdollar]

.


There just seems a lot of slightly inexplicable resentment towards this woman for doing things that hardly make her unique: declaiming in a revolutionary style, mixing up genres in a populist way, selling her songs for advertising, making random political statements...

FWIW, I like her clumsiness and awkwardness, think Arular is a pretty good record...I'm suspicious of the way she seems to gets it in the neck, like she's not allowed to make any mistakes or something...nonseq's questions above are good ones...

i think that's exactly right. i find the anger that M.I.A generates very odd. i mean, so she's a bit of twat sometimes. what's the big deal? most people, and a high proportion of musicians, are twats sometimes too. just look at damon albarn.

as for the argument that she's somehow presenting herself as 'grime' or dancehall or whatever, i'm not sure i see the problem as;

a) she's really not presenting herself as grime or dancehall.
b) if she was, it'd just make her stupid, but then loads of musicians say stupid things.
c) nobody who takes the time to listen to her and had actually heard grime or dancehall (which most people who have heard M.I.A would have done) would think that she was grime or dancehall.

but i guess this is all just old-hat. but still, i'm totally confused as to why people hate her so much. jesus christ, direct yr hate against that cunt robbie williams or someone instead. someone worthy of it.

 

[bun-u]

apparrently Hondas are now selling like hot cakes to the mud hut people

This comment seems to have been misinterpreted, and has thrown up some interesting questions about MIA’s treatment on here.

For the record I should’ve put the mud hut people comment within speech marks, emphasising the already made point that this wasn’t my description, but was MIA’s herself. The joke was really against MIA’s claim that the ‘mud hut people’ were her people, then comparing this to Honda’s likely target audience (an altogether different socio-economic group)…anyway a joke explained is a joke ruined.

Also for another record, my attitude towards MIA has been a fairly ambivalent (‘nothing to see here’). I don’t like her music but I also don’t think it warrants the fuss caused (it hasn’t even sold well). I did though see the Mercury Prize programme where her ‘mud hut’ claims were repeatedly made…something along the lines of ‘some people talk about being on a Council estate, well that’s a holiday camp compared to the mud huts I grew up in….the mud hut people are my people’. For me, I can ignore the unnecessary MIA-authenticity-hyperbole, but those comments deserve ridicule.

As to the gender angle, I am also concerned. I’ve mentioned it on here before that he two most vilified artists on Dissensus so far are MIA and Lady Sovereign. Coming from a male dominated forum, and discussing music scenes where the female artists are few and far between…this is perhaps a little worrying.

 

[k-punk]

I too am largely baffled by the level of heat that MIA-discussion seems to generate. For sure, she seems to be her own worst enemy; I rather enjoyed the record AS sound (catchy grime and bashment-inflected pop) but her presence IS so overweeningly smug and precious that once you've seen an interview with her (and yes, the mud hut thing is her own coinage) it becomes difficult to hear the music in the same way. And yet, I can't understand the level of rage she generates...

But she's clearly functioning as a symptom of other antagonisms.

Can't really see the misogyny case... yes, the board is dominated by males, more's the pity, as is grime... but neither of these situations will be put right by exempting MIA from the ridicule which her posturing does deserve...

though Simon SDS is also right: why not pour derision on those who really deserve it, such as Williams, or more pertinently Franz Ferdinand and the Futureheads?

 

[joeschmo]

<i>why not pour derision on those who really deserve it, such as Williams, or more pertinently Franz Ferdinand and the Futureheads?</i>

because they aren't treading on turf that certain people are heavily personally invested in, that's why...

 

[simon silverdollar]

<i>why not pour derision on those who really deserve it, such as Williams, or more pertinently Franz Ferdinand and the Futureheads?</i>

because they aren't treading on turf that certain people are heavily personally invested in, that's why...

well, robbie williams is trying to do dub reggae now, isn't he?

god i hope his album is a flop.

 

[droid]

well, robbie williams is trying to do dub reggae now, isn't he?

Ditto Sinead O'Connor - and she seems like a much more likely target!

 

[Canada J Soup]

The term 'mud hut' (as in 'from a mud hut in Sri Lanka to a council estate in London') occurs repeatedly in assorted web and magazine articles feting MIA as the greatest thing since peppered mangoes. It's part of her shtick, rendered doubly ridiculous by the number of times it has obviously been copied straight from the Arular press pack.

I think the reason why MIA generates such a disproportionate level of animosity (disproportionate to how weak her music and art actually are) is due to the people who don't rate her being gobsmacked at the level of hype she has managed to have generated about her. This has all been covered way too many times before though...

 

[blissblogger]

two most vilified artists on Dissensus so far are MIA and Lady Sovereign. .

really? i thought Lady Sov got nuff love here, apart from a few heavy-duty grime purists. I for one think she's great.

The misogyny angle's just silly--i mean, scores of male artists get trounced here. you only have to mention Bono or Chris Coldplay and it's a bloodbath.

Likewise the racism angle.... surely Dissensus is nothing if not a board where people are busy exalting, analysing, debating relative merits therein, etc music made by non-white people. There aren't many threads on Skrewdriver. Or even indie-rock for that matter.

The "heat" i think comes from the fact that M.I.A. is a bit of a discursive "tensor" (to borrow and probably misuse a term of Lyotard's) a whole bunch of contemporary issues and dilemmas and highly contested ideas are condensed in and around her work, so it becomes a flashpoint for arguments and musico-philosophical differences that go way beyond her actual music or career. Although her public utterances certainly help to add a little zest to the anti- position.

 

[Canada J Soup]

Quick Google stats: 50% of results 1 - 6 of 6 for "mud hut in Sri Lanka" are about MIA.

 

[stelfox]

So it would be better if she would be as apolitical as most other musicians?
Surely that would be worse!

why is "politicization" of music even when it is complete wank, ill-considered, opportunistic "politicization" (scare quotes *really* necessary here) better than no politicization?

Also, why are most people so sure about her referencing Tamils etc "to get cred / attention"?
How do you know it's not a genuine feeling of hers?!

i have never called into question if she's sincere about this issue or not (that would be *really* crass and wrong to my view, although many are)

The Honda commercial is by no means a proof that she doesn't care about Tamils or whatever.
Moreover does it matter?!

No, I'm glad she did it and I'd like to see mor up and coming artists selling out to advertising at every opportunity. the whole selling to honda is horseshit indie nonsense that deserves to be sneered at and nothing more.

Shouldn't she be judged on the basis of her actions, rather than guesswork about her thinking?
Isn't the better criterion for an evaluation of her media performance the ideological effects?
Like:
she doesn't promote hardline anticapitalism but she does try to raise awareness about exploitation of poor people?

the quesswork idea is nonsense, there's no guessing involved, her work is reamed with this stuff and she's VERY outspoken about it. "is she getting money back to people who need it"? if so huge props. if this is schtick, fuck you because using stuff like that as a selling point is about as tasteless as it gets, no matter where you're at or where you're from.

Basically it's the old question whether it's better to be a capitalist pig who doesn't care for poor people but at least isn't a hypocrite or to be part of the capitalist system like almost everybody, criticise it and be accused of hypocrisy, selling out etc

i believe this question is addressed above.