What is going on with M.I.A.?

Unless you have decided to stop reading magazines, newspapers and blogs in the last two months, you have probably heard quite a bit about M.I.A. recently. I did not read the New York Times article that supposedly exposed her as a fraud by contrasting her revolutionary rhetoric with her currently privileged lifestyle, but it was hard to ignore the aftermath, which included M.I.A. tweeting the reporter's name and phone number. Spin and Rolling Stone have both done recent articles tht reference the NYT article, and try to give a balanced account of what M.I.A. says versus what she does. Ecko Complex did a puff piece on her with lots of nice pictures. Diplo, a former partner and producer, has wasted no bandwidth telling the world exactly what he thinks of MAYA, the latest album. (Spoiler alert: he doesn't like it.)

I was finally able to hear the record after reading all of this primarily negative press. I hoped the music would overshadow the hype. I was excited about M.I.A. when she debuted with "Arular" and was being hailed as the newest, most exciting thing in hip-hop. "Arular" was spotty, but where it was good, it was really good. I loved "Galang," "Pull up the People," and "Sunshowers." The album as a whole showed a lot of promise and potential and a new, fresh voice. Her second album, "Kala," was dope: much more consistent, with great beats and hooks. I still didn't understand what she was talking about half of the time, but I didn't care. I have never been sure why people spend so much time talking about her revolutionary lyrics. M.I.A.'s thoughts never seem finished, at least in her songs. Even some of her quotes in articles seem more like slogans than real revolutionary or anarchist thought. But her inability to spend enough time in the U.S. to allow Timbaland to produce all of "Kala" forced her to go in many different directions, including using full Indian drum sections, sharing the mic with street kids, remaking Bollywood classics, etc. "Kala" was a successful hodgepodge, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, the new album sucks. There was not one song I wanted to listen to more than once. There were a few I couldn't even sit through one time. M.I.A. appears to adhere to the "all publicity is good publicity" school, but the music has to back it up. This album does not. I have read reviews that talk about her subversiveness, singing lines that sound like she might be saying "I really love Allah." Whether that is what she said, or that is just what she wants you to think she said, does it matter if the song isn't any good? Unfortunately, no. The hype machine will probably continue revolving around M.I.A., but there is no substance to back it up this time around.

5 Major Misconceptions about Hip-Hop

1. Today's hip-hop music is mostly crap.
Okay, this is largely true. But not entirely. If you listen to the radio (I try not to), or watch the 10 minutes a day when MTV isn't playing reality shows (I don't), you'll hear a lot of crap. Here at the Early Show, we listen to some of everything and you can tell by what we've posted about so far. When it comes to hip-hop, we like the established artists, we like the popular artists and we like the newer, underground folks. We've been huge fans of Jay-Z since Reasonable Doubt. We loved Lil' Wayne around The Carter II and whichever DJ Drama mixtape had "Cannon" on it. Swizz Beatz puts out some good stuff. Sometimes. But all of these guys also put out some crap BECAUSE THEY CAN. People buy it no matter what because it's what's "hot in the game right now." Please. In my opinion, Lil' Wayne and his Young Money clown posse set hip-hop back several years with their Grammy performance. Profanity doesn't equal quality and, for the love of God, pull your pants up.

2. Hip-hop music only uses samples and/or over-simplified synthesizers and drum machines.
Again, there is some truth to this. But it's not always a bad thing. Go back for a second to the Golden Age of Hip-Hop. We'll wait. There was a lot of creativity in sampling back then. Folks like De La Soul, Public Enemy, Biz Markie and the Beastie Boys had some sick productions where they'd take pieces of 8-10 songs and make something new and unique with them. Then the artists they borrowed/stole from found out how much money they were making. Now no one can afford to do this. So today's producers either sample one old song and let it ride, or over-do it with the synths and drum machines. It sure would be nice if some of these producers knew how to play some instruments.

Oh, wait a minute, some of them do! First off, all respect is due to the Roots. They've been doing this live hip-hop thing and making it work for longer than anyone else. (I'm not talking about the whole Jimmy Fallon thing right now.) But the Roots are not the only ones doing it. I saw a couple of great shows in the mid-90s by Common and the Fugees with live bands behind them. A lot of MCs just ask the Roots to back them up, because it's easier. On the local NYC scene, there are tons of bands doing the live hip-hop thing. Going back to the early 2000s, we had the Higher Circle and Alter Egos doing it. These days, we have BR and Timebomb, the Ideas, LAW and Planet 12, Dujeous, Hyphen-One and Daylow out of New Jersey and Swift Technique holding it down for Philadelphia. Flobots is doing their thing in Denver. There are probably more out there we don't know. Holla if we missed someone good.

3. Hip-hop is male-dominated and misogynistic.
Male-dominated? Yes. But there have always been some dope female MC's in the game: Roxanne Shante, MC Lyte, Salt 'n' Pepa, Queen Latifah, Monie Love, Missy Elliot, Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown, Jean Grae, Bahamadia, M.I.A., etc. You can make arguments that some of them had male ghost writers and that some of them used their bodies and sexuality as a crutch but I'm not making that argument. And I just heard a piece last night on NPR (what? I know.) about newer female MC's they heard at this year's SXSW: Kid Sister, Invincible and Malaga. All of them were doing innovative stuff.

Misogynistic? Yes, unfortunately. But not everyone. Step past the radio crap and you'll hear men and women writing some positive, conscious lyrics where you can tell they actually gave some thought to relations between men and women as well as other real-life issues that don't include Cristal or diamond jewelry.

4. Hip-hop is one-dimensional.
I think I've already made my point on this one. I can disprove this misconception just by listing some of my favorite hip-hop artists of all time: OutKast, the Roots, Mos Def, Public Enemy, Wu-Tang Clan, De La Soul, Brand Nubian, EPMD, MF Doom, Cee-Lo, Lauryn Hill, A Tribe Called Quest, Rakim. Need I say more? How many dimensions is that?

5. Hip-hop is dead.
The funny thing about this one is most of the people who say it continue to make hip-hop albums (I'm looking at you, Nas). Back in the day, De La Soul called their second album, "De La Soul is Dead." And they were basically stating that the style they brought on their brilliant first album of Daisy-era, hippie stuff was pretty much over. And if you think about it, the people who have created every kind of American music have gone on to completely evolve it and remove themselves from the older sub-genres. Sometimes the creators and their fans leave the music altogether to other people. I'm talking about jazz, blues, rock, and now hip-hop. Commercial hip-hop is just that: commercial. And yet, it's still ignored by people who base their ignorance on these 5 misconceptions (I'm talking to you, L Magazine. Is indie rock really the only music worth listening to? Jeez.)

I had to read this book once for an economics class (got a C minus, thank you very much) that stated that in a global economy, there was less of a need and less market for talented musicians in different parts of the world because everyone now has access to the very best worldwide. They used opera as an example. Everyone can buy Pavarotti, so they don't need their local opera singer whose name I don't know. The same seems to be happening with hip-hop. Everyone can buy Young Money or Gucci Mane, so they don't have to look for quality in their local market. But it's high time that they do.