M.I.A. in Montreal

September 24, 2005
If you haven't heard of M.I.A. by now then you must be living under a rock. Sri Lankan born, London raised, Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam is the hottest crossover emcee to hit the airwaves in recent years. She's sexy, she's political, and I had the chance to see her live in Montreal this past weekend.

The show opened with a mash up set followed by some rhymes by Baltimore rapper Spank Rock (current single: Put That Pussy On Me). Not bad, but definitely not why people had made their way to Metropolis that night. The show had originally been booked at sister venue Le Spectrum, but was moved down the street to pack in a few more of M.I.A.'s new fans. The stage was dressed with several handcrafted items, including a wooden tiger, a helicopter on a stick, and a makeshift palm tree adorned with some Christmas lights. A banner, similar to the artwork on the Galang single, hung behind the DJ's table. With the hip kids in the crowd donning their '80s retro fashions, the whole thing came off like the best high school talent show ever!

Appropriately enough several tracks from Peaches accompanied the dancehall tunes that were played before performers took the stage. Peaches, Maya's XL label-mate, is reportedly the one who turned Maya on to the Roland MC-505 synthesizer after meeting her at an Elastica show.

Diplo, the Philly-based DJ whose mix tape Piracy Funds Terrorism started the M.I.A. phenomenon (the two are also reported to be an item), was on hand as a spectator. The acting mixmaster warmed up his decks, and as soon he cued up the samples "M," "I" and "A" the crowd went nuts. I was right up against the stage on the far left. Maya and her backup sidekick skipped out onto the stage and segued from the "Opening March" into "Pull Up The People." Maya took the opportunity to give a shout out to New Orleans and the victims of hurricane Katrina.

The set included pretty much everything from Arular along with a song listed as "Nookie," though I don't recall hearing anything new during the show (must've been an alternate title for one of the album tracks, or ended up getting left out the set). The start of "Bucky Done Gun" was changed to name check Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto -- "where my Canadians at!" We were treated to a few extra hooks thrown in by the DJ, like Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It." Maya energetically worked the stage and the crowd, holding the mic out to the people in the front row to sing along to a few numbers including "Amazon" and "10 Dollar." She flashed a bright smile as she walked over to my side of the stage and caught me unabashedly joining in on "Sunshowers."


During the show Maya commented on the fact that "Galang" is now featured in a new Honda Civic commercial. She said she hasn't forgotten living in poverty in Sri Lanka, and didn't care what people thought about her taking the money. She went on to say that the money could be used for good things, true to the socially conscious rhetoric on her record.

The song order on the setlist was rearranged slightly, with "Hombre" coming a bit later, swapping places with "10 Dollar." Maya did the old call-and-response with the men and women on the those tracks. The ladies definitely won that contest. "Galang" closed the set and left the crowd wanting more. Maya returned to a track I only know as Dave's Chappelle Show intro music. That was used for a slow-and-low remix of the track "M.I.A." Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin" was used to rework "Bingo," more closely resembling the original Piracy version.

As the crowd cheered her on, Maya lamented her lack of material. She even conferred with Diplo at the side of stage for a moment -- about what, I'm not sure. A request for "Lady Killa" was acknowledged but left unfulfilled. When someone from the crowd called out for an encore of "Galang," Maya confided that it was really time for her to go and write some new material. After a little more confabbing on stage, Maya encouraged the crowd to try and get double the pleasure out of what would be her final number for the evening, "URAQT."

All in all, a great, high energy show. There were a few moments where verses didn't flow quite perfectly, but everyone was having too good of a time to notice. Can't wait to see M.I.A. again when she has some new material ready for the hungry masses.

See more photos from the show here.

Check out this bit of fun at George Bush & Tony Blair's expense brought to you by Diplo & XL Recordings. Quicktime is required.