MIA's (powwa powwa) music video for 'Born Free' is out!

In Pic: MIA

Woot!  She's our favourite renegade from Sri Lanka and I absolutely love her politically charged, dance hall friendly, bass heavy music - Arular and Kala are definitely quintessential albums to have! It's good to see she's finally truly breaking out of the underground and into the mainstream, lol even though a lot has to do with the fact that Slumdog Millionaire made 'Paper Planes' a massive massive tune.

I gotta say, I'm mad excited about her third album announcement (it's slated for June 29th, 2010), was a little worried she had gone into retirement permanently.  Listening to her latest single 'Born Free' it sounds like a ridiculous blend of punk, electro and dub... it's almost as if French electro punkers Justice and Simian Mobile Disco have influenced her.

My recommendation is that you search out her mixed tapes with Diplo... they will not disappoint. I think the stand out mix is called 'Piracy Funds Terrorism.'  From what I gather the format is Diplo plays a pop, disco, dance hall based DJ set over which MIA sings.  There's also a great mix with MIA's prodigy Santogold and Diplo which is a must listen!  Top of my head it's called 'Top Ranking: A Diplo Dub.'  Diplo is the ultimate party DJ... he's use to play under the moniker of 'Hollertronix' with another guy, but from what I know, Diplo is the star.  Extremely extremely talented DJ and producer.  Along the lines of Mark Ronson, if not better.

Let me find out what the distributing guidelines are and see if I can upload you guys both sets in the near future. Hold tight. :)

PSST - Is it M - I - A or mia? Confusion.  Haha I say, M - I - A, cuz it sounds cooler.

REVIEW: So I sat down and gave this video a proper watch. Felt like I was watching part 2 of Prodigy's Smack my Bitch up video. Has that District 9 feel to it. It's following a SWAT team from hell, which shows them basically bust into people's houses and beat the crap out of them with batons.  Nice little break down and well you gotta love those gingers.  Dudes smoking crack, obese people having sex (you see it all lol) and whoah, a kid getting shot in the head and there are a few more brutal surprises at the end. It's powerful and provocative.  And MIA ringing 'I was booooorrn free. I was booooorn free. Born born born born free, born born born freeee' is absolutely sick. Someone needs to loop that vocal and make a techno beast for me. :)  Love the song and I gotta say it's a pretty dope video.  I finally get what last week's South Park episode is all about.  I also think it's quite funny to see how visible those American flags are on the SWAT team's arms.

In Pic: Still from South Park

Did a little research on the director, Romain Gavras... surprise surprise, he's French and he's worked with Justice.

This came out yesterday:

A controversial video for British chart star MIA in which red-haired people are rounded up and executed is proving too hot to handle and has been given an adults-only rating by YouTube. The brutal nine-minute film for her track Born Free features graphic scenes of a child being shot through the head and a man being blown apart in an explosion.  

The video was initially available to be seen by anyone on the video-sharing site, but has now been given an 18-plus age restriction. 

Mercury Music Prize-nominated MIA posted a series of ranting messages on Twitter, initially claiming that her US record company had pulled the video from YouTube. Shortly afterwards she backtracked and said the firm was not to blame. 

The video can still be viewed at her YouTube channel, as well as on her own website. The new video from the confrontational musician - whose Clash-inspired track Paper Planes featured heavily in the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack - shows armed US troops taking ginger-haired children and youths into a desert and attacking them. It is thought to be a parallel with racism. 

A spokesman for YouTube said: "With 24 hours of video uploaded every minute to YouTube, we are unable to comment on specific videos. Our policy is to age-restrict content that has been flagged by the community and identified by our policy enforcement team as content that, while not violating our community guidelines, is not suitable for users under age 18."

Copyright © 2010 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

UPDATE: Well it didn't take too long for the video to be pulled off youtube. :)  You can probably find it on her site - takes a bit of time to load though. ... Alright it's back... hopefully the link below doesn't get 'copyrighted.'

Check out MIA's controversial music video for Born Free: Click here
Follow MIA on Twitter: Click here
Check out MIA's website: Click here