REVIEW: Nearly 20 years after she made her debut, MIAuniverse's scrappy global sonics remain prescient, but lyrically her sixth album 'MATA' feels aimless.
But if the album’s sound taps into well-timed nostalgia, her equally backwards-looking lyrics don’t come off as well. She continually makes nods to previous scuffles with public opinion, as on the rowdy, Priya Ragu-featuring “F.I.A.S.O.M. Pt.
Meanwhile, she’s more successful at self-mythologizing on songs like “Zoo Girl” and “Time Traveller,” whose playful lyrics pull specific references from her experience as a Sri Lankan Tamil refugee and third-culture kid; on the former track, she cheekily calls herself a “zoo girl straight out the wild, wild East,” and an “alien bringing unity in your face,” while the latter song builds out a futuristic image of the artist freely zooming through space and time on a “vimāna,” mythological flying...
The album closes with “Marigolds,” a rap ballad mourning the apocalyptic state of the world, featuring background vocals from Lil Uzi Vert. Though the titular flowers that M.I.A. mentions are a symbol of hope and brightness, the song’s message ends up being one of despondence; when singing, “We all need a miracle,” she implies that only an act of God would be able to save the scourged planet, and that people have no power to save themselves.
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