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In case you missed it, a month ago on May 30, which is about 20 years in internet time, M.I.A. was profiled in the New York Times Sunday magazine with a critical eye to her knotty politics. Resonant throughout the piece was the fact that the once-underground M.I.A.—who either claims or doesn’t claim, depending on the day of the week, to support the revolutionary group Tamil Tigers of her native Sri Lanka—has connected herself with the American upper class by becoming engaged to Ben Brewer, the Seagram heir and son of billionaire Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman.
The ensuing Trufflegate, as it were, went down like this: In the piece, M.I.A. was quoted as saying that she wanted to be an “outsider” while “eating a truffle-flavored French fry,” which is pretty damn great. M.I.A. took her outrage to Twitter, where she posted NYT staff writer Lynn Hirschberg’s cell number, and her own blog, where she posted a supposed response-in-song mp3 that failed to live up to its “diss track” Googlability. She also posted recorded evidence that Hirschberg herself ordered the truffle fries, which didn’t vindicate the overall theme of the piece but allowed a slight smug satisfaction before going back to dressing up for photographers, shouting about war and making videos in which a kid’s head gets blown off.
I really don’t care who ordered the truffle fries. Really. The supposed hypocrisy of supporting the Third World while hustling the First World? I see no problem with that. She went to art school, people. What you learn in art school, or by listening to Madonna, is to strike a pose, shunning authenticity in the quest of the illusion thereof. It’s pop music’s No. 1 rule.
What matters to me as a longtime M.I.A. fan is whether or not she can continue to make engaging, forward-thinking records. Six years ago, she blew the music industry wide open with Piracy Funds Terrorism, a mix tape promoted on hip-hop sites largely due to its producer, Diplo, a star in underground circles. (M.I.A. and Diplo have since gone on to publicly denigrate each other’s contributions but still work together.)
With debut album Arular and breakthrough follow-up Kala, with the smash hit “Paper Planes,” M.I.A.’s (or Diplo’s) sound has now infiltrated pop music to an innocuous degree. You can hear the signature dancehall triplet beat, pseudo-analog effects and dry vocal delivery in everything from Lil’ Wayne protégée Nicki Manaj to pop icon Christina Aguilera.
Yet M.I.A.’s distinctly modern music has been overshadowed by her distinctly instigative stance. At last year’s Outside Lands Festival, extra security was brought to the front of the stage because, pissed off that Tenacious D had filled the headlining slot instead of her, M.I.A. had pre-announced that the crowd could join her onstage. She never delivered on the promised bumrush, instead singing the entirety of “Paper Planes” completely off-key and futzing through a sloppy, noisy new song, “Born Free,” which met with stunned silence from the crowd.
So it’s a little weird that “Born Free” became M.I.A.’s first video—the one with the kid getting shot in the head—from her upcoming record. With a guitar sample from post-punk pioneers Suicide, muddled vocals and hardly any rhythm, it defines what labels deem “not a hit.” “XXXO” was quickly leaked to steer the conversation into a more accessible realm, but it was an overcorrective turn with Lady Gaga&–sounding production and dimwitted lyrics about “tweeting me like Tweety Bird on your iPhone.”
Maya, or ///Y/, as it’s known typographically, is out July 13 and is not as much a piece of shit as these two songs would have one believe. Rather, it’s daringly creative, a pastiche of noises culled from post-punk, industrial and experimental palettes arranged into structured form and immediate hooks. References to living online abound, from the YouTube-inspired cover art to intentionally glitchy digital noise, and cultural globetrotting is still M.I.A.’s gambit. “Steppin’ Up” rattles like the inside of a Detroit car factory; “It Takes a Muscle” siphons Caribbean reggae by way of Brixton; “Meds and Feds” channels D.C. hardcore.
M.I.A. sings that “all I ever wanted was my story to be told,” and now that it has been, and exhaustively so, she croons (“Tell Me Why,” “Space”), squawks (“Teqkilla”) and mumbles (“It Iz What It Iz”) stories more removed from whatever political stance she may claim. As far as I can ascertain, the record teems with political references but conatins no actual political songs. Despite an intro connecting Google to the government, Maya namechecks the Taliban, Obama, the CIA, the FBI, time bombs, the Pope, marijuana, cops and Gandhi without tying any of these concepts together. The rest of M.I.A.’s songs are mostly about love, a subject as knotty as politics but one which rarely gets pop stars in trouble, and, in increasing frequency, herself and her wealth and her fame.
Is this what moving to America, and more specifially Southern California, has done to M.I.A.? Made her kick against the country she calls a “chicken factory” while aping its lowest forms of art? Perhaps. But remember that her art-school pose relies on embracing contradiction, in this case selling a critique of America to America from an area of Los Angeles—she lives in Brentwood—with a median income upwards of $100,000. Beneath the media din, not only is M.I.A. owning the pose, it’s a blaringly original pose set to an album with dramatic production and unexpected highlights.
With one concessionary “hit” single anchoring a pastiche of noises culled from post-punk, industrial and experimental palettes, the fact is that Maya is the perfect record for M.I.A. to be making right now.
The big question facing all classical-music organizations these days is how to convert new fans to attend performances. The Cotati-based American Philharmonic orchestra has hit upon the most effective, if obvious, answer: make concerts free. Self-described as “the people’s orchestra,” there’s nothing stuffy about the AP’s performances, and they’re usually peppered with uncommon pieces from the repertoire. This weekend’s program, titled Inner Space – Outer Space, features Holst’s The Planets, a common piece if ever there was one. But representing the “inner” portion of the program is Copland’s poignant Quiet City, originally written for an obscure Irwin Shaw play of the same name that closed after two shows. Debussy’s Nocturnes rounds out the egalitarian experience on Saturday, May 22 at 8pm and Sunday, May 23 at 3pm, at the Wells Fargo Center. 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. Free; donations accepted. 707.542.8234.Gabe Meline 
Napa’s recently-restored Uptown Theatre has opened (finally!) at an opportune juncture in the North Bay. With Konocti Harbor Resort closed and the Wells Fargo Center restructuring their booking, the Uptown’s management have picked up the ball and are spelling out acts on their marquee that used to grace those venues: Ani DiFranco, Foreigner, Lewis Black, Asia, B.B. King, Merle Haggard. Smaller performers who might not ordinarily play an opulently renovated 860-seat 1930s theater get a chance, too, with a handful of interesting double bills, including Richard Thompson and Loudon Wainwright III together later this month. This weekend, it’s Grammy Award-winner Shawn Colvin paired with the bespectacled Lisa Loeb on Saturday, May 22, at the Uptown Theatre. 1350 Third St., Napa. 8pm. $37-$47. 707.259.0123.Gabe Meline 
Within days of the first, wildly successful Hootenanny at the North Bay Film and Art Collective, event organizers celebrated with our modern version of the old-time vaudeville afterglow. In other words, they started a Facebook page. It soon emerged that there was more than memorializing at hand, though, because this weekend’s second installment, titled Dustbowl Road, features over two dozen bands spread out over just five hours. At a block party including Video Droid, the Last Record Store, Community Market and Gaia’s Garden, there’s the music of Waters, J.D. Limelight, Skiffle Symphony, the Easy Leaves and truckloads more; workshops and jams continue throughout the day until the afterparty at the North Bay Film and Art Collective that night at 6:30. Grab your banjo and shuck on down on Saturday, May 22, at Clement and Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa. Noon-5pm. Free. 707.525.1963.
There’s some dishes to be done. Fill the sink with water, clean them, drain the sink. Carpets a little dirty. Get out vacuum, turn it on, turn it off. Dust on the bookshelves. Find duster, dust, replace duster. Like a household chore, it’s with this same perfunctory process that E-40 appeared to treat his show two months ago in Petaluma: Get to show, play hits, bail. Within 45 minutes, a guy counted a stack of cash on the stage; directly after, the Vallejo-bred rapper was out the side door and driving away in an SUV. But you wanna know the maddening thing? Those were 45 insanely great minutes. For those who’ve danced their ass off to “Sprinkle Me” live and in person, make wit’ da hurryupness when E-40 plays on Thursday, May 20, at 19 Broadway Niteclub, 19 Broadway, Fairfax. 9:30pm. $30. 415.459.1091.Gabe Meline 
Most dance clubs strive for flashiness in their names, but looking at the greats—Fabric, the Hacienda, Pacha, Studio 54—it’s clear that simpler is better. Party: Sixth and Wilson has a similarly plain, descriptive title, and could well just be the dance event of the summer—even though the summer’s not here yet. In an effort to completely transform the inside of the normally staid brick North Bay Film & Art Collective, the event producers are bringing in “live plants of all shapes and sizes, mylar and other plastics, glass globes, sound loops and video montages” for an experience the promoters are promising will “immerse the partygoer.” With DJs from Detroit and San Francisco, expect to sweat up a frenzy at Party: Sixth and Wilson on Saturday, May 15, at the North Bay Film and Art Collective, 99 Sixth St., Santa Rosa. 9pm. $12; 21 and over. myspace.com/northbayfac.Gabe Meline 
Like Burt Bacharach, the Oklahoma-born songwriter Jimmy Webb is an AM-radio legend, penning hits such as “MacArthur Park,” “Wichita Lineman” and “Up, Up and Away.” Unlike Bacharach, he hardly gets his due anymore. Courageously splitting away from commercial endeavors in the 1970s transformed Webb into something of a cult figure, but whose fans include Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, R.E.M. and Willie Nelson. Webb’s genius can be heard on Isaac Hayes’ version of his “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” which Frank Sinatra called “the greatest torch song ever written,” and on the sprawling, creative and bizarre Richard Harris concept album The Yard Went on Forever, a rare but cherished LP. He performs on Saturday, May 15, at the Napa Valley Opera House, 1030 Main St., Napa. 8pm. $25-$35. 707.226.7372.Gabe Meline 
