The first time I saw M.I.A., probably my favorite female artist, perform live was this weekend at McCarren Pool in Williamsburg. The first time I listened to M.I.A. was in 2005. I was about to go to Kolkata, India, to visit a friend and thought her music would make the perfect soundtrack for my trip. She was Sri Lankan, after all, which was close enough to Indian for me, and her sound was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Knowing I was about to expose myself to a world where medicating before you got sick (in the form of multiple vaccinations and daily malaria pills) is the norm, there was something in me that felt that only she could satisfy the role of trusty travel companion. M.I.A., or Maya Arulpragasam, has been through a lot in her lifetime – or at least enough to inspire the fearful side of me to get out there and get raw!
It’s been three years since I bought her first album, Arular, and all of my logical reasons for bringing her music into my life have been replaced by emotional connections and informed fascinations. First of all, Sri Lanka may be similar to India if you’re a white girl from the Upper West Side, but to the powerful woman that is M.I.A., there’s no country like her own – no experience quite like hers.
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But for most people, it’s old news that M.I.A.’s father is a Tamil militant and that she spent much of her life fleeing from violence in a war-torn Sri Lanka. It was for this reason that her mother took her and her two siblings to England when she was ten. Now 30-years-old, her accomplishments as an artist, musician and straight-up survivor continue to inspire and empower me as I walk through the ups-and-downs of my relatively less tumultuous bumps in the road.
This ability to pull people into her world from the far reaches of the planet is part of her appeal – and what packs the house every time she’s in town. This was the case on Friday, June 6, at McCarren Pool.
Many of my friends, most of which are just about as passionate about M.I.A. as I am, were deterred by the concert’s high ticket prices. At $40 a pop, they decided to sit this one out, considering it an offense to the fans who have followed her and supported her rise from the indie world music scene to the international limelight she now occupies. But I feel that if anyone is worth supporting, it’s her. She’s just that good and hey, she’s worth it. She puts on a damn good show.
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Running late as usual in my life, I got to the concert after she’d started her illustrious show. In fact, I could hear her heavy bass beats and high-pitched calls loud and clear from Bedford Avenue. As I got closer to the venue, her words became clearer, the bass became deeper, and very quickly the frenzied screams of the crowd could almost drowned out the music.
I knew M.I.A. was popular, but I was still shocked to see almost every inch of space in McCarren Pool covered by lip-synching enthusiasts. As I made my way to the stage, thanks to my boyfriend who helped to part the seas before me, I noticed that her fans were of every shade and age you could imagine.
Our final destination was quite close to the highly-decorated stage. From where we stood, amidst beer cans and sweaty limbs, I had a perfect view of M.I.A., her DJ, her colorfully decorated back-up dancers, her back-up singer and her entourage of friends, family and V.I.P.’s that watched from backstage.
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Ten short minutes after I got there, she put out a call to the ladies to join her on stage! Camera in hand, I ducked under the security tape, jumped over the fence that guards the stage, and found myself within feet of the fabulous Maya. She was wearing an emerald green dress with holes that revealed her skin, a bleached-blond wig and a crown. Plastic palm trees lit up the stage and deeply-rooted security guards made sure the lovely ladies didn’t get too rowdy. But they weren’t very successful. As M.I.A. sang “Boyz,” one her most popular hits from her second album Kala, the large group that had gathered on stage went wild. I did my best to snap shots of the action, half unable to believe that I was really there, half confident that of course I was there – only M.I.A. would fearlessly incite a giant party! Kudos to the queen!
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