Halloween + M.I.A. =A winning combination.
It was so nice to get out again. Especially at such a fun concert. I'm in trouble now though. I was already crushing on Ms. Arulpragasam, but now its at full-scale infatuation.
I don't know what I expected, but I was surprised that the crowd (as can be seen in the picture to the left) was overwhelmingly white. Is M.I.A. too weird to be attractive to mainstream hip-hop? Is she only appealing to white indie-rock kids? Any record that samples/references The Modern Lovers, New Order, the Pixies, and the Clash has got to have some pull on that audience. Also, I noticed that pitchfork is all about her while the only outright negative review I've seen of Kala was in VIBE, so maybe. The crowd was distinctly indie-rock, but the show was... something else. A perfect compliment to her music, as crazy as it is. Genre-bending and reverse cultural colonialism have never sounded so good - it gives me hope that globalization is not such a bad thing after all. To some people it sounds like a big mess, but she has got methods to her madnesses.
So, M.I.A.'s not exactly mainstream, but she is smart and awesome and talented*. That's why people love her and its enough.
*And popular, the show was sold out.
