翻译：thesweetescape

A Buoyant Balancing Act Between the Political and Personal

一次平衡政治和个人生活的快意尝试。

The rapper-singer continues to triangulate sociopolitical commentary and personal identity in consistently clever ways.

这位说唱歌手以一贯的聪慧做法将社会事件与个人认同感结合起来。

“I can’t please everyone,” taunts M.I.A. on “Beep,” a clattering, crowd-pleasing track from her uncommonly buoyant sixth studio album, Mata. Over on Twitter, the rapper-singer has resorted to old habits—namely, pissing people off with odious comparisons between conspiracy-monger Alex Jones and celebrities promoting Covid-19 vaccination.

“I can’t please everyone,” M.I.A.在歌曲“Beep,” 中嘲讽道，一首掷地有声的流行歌曲，收录在她非同寻常的第六张专辑《MATA》。这位说唱歌手在推特平台上恢复往昔火力全开的状态——以阴谋论博主Alex Jones的观点抨击网友，批评其他宣传yi苗的艺人。

On the one hand, we all achingly need to stop looking for, or at least expecting, moral and ethical leadership from pop culture figures (another lyric from “Beep” issues M.I.A.’s reminder of the same: “I’m not a politician and not U.N.”). On the other, M.I.A. has made doing this difficult, as her persona always been fiercely informed by her subversive, often radical politics.

一方面，我们极需停止寻找或期待能诞生一位混迹于流行乐坛的道德楷模。（歌曲“Beep”里的其他歌词也表明了M.I.A.的立场“I’m not a politician and not U.N.”）另一方面，由于她颠覆性的、往往是激进的政治立场深度影响了她的艺术人格，这让她很难做到这一点。

And then there’s the matter of M.I.A.’s music itself, which—since the release of her most divisive album to date, 2010’s Maya, effectively chased away fair-weather fans—has been mostly devoid of any friction, and usually all the better for it. Thankfully, Mata continues this trend, because much like 2016’s AIM, the album supplies both a steady stream of spartan, world music-infused beats and a procession of relentlessly catchy hooks and inventive melodies.

还有关于M.I.A.的音乐历程——在2010年发行了她职业生涯至今最具争议的专辑《Maya》后，吓跑一大批玻璃心听众——这通常是好事。值得庆幸的是，《Mata》延续了这种犀利，很像2016年的专辑《AIM》，这张专辑同样配有斯巴达式的世界音乐节拍，一系列抓耳hook和创意旋律。

The first few songs of Mata’s 33-minute set lean heavier on their unique production than they do on M.I.A.’s pop instincts. Sonic colossus “F.I.A.S.O.M. Pt. 1” (“Freedom Is a State of Mind”) gives “Born Free” a run for its money in terms of out-of-the-gate intensity, while “F.I.A.S.O.M. Pt. 2” calls back to the more collage-like detail of 2005’s Arular, and even musters a vocal house-adjacent charge thanks to the ferocious, belted hook from Tamil-Swiss singer Priya Ragu.

这张全场33分钟的专辑最初的几首歌曲独具匠心的制作显然盖过了M.I.A.的流行嗅觉。气势磅礴的开场曲“F.I.A.S.O.M. Pt. 1” (“Freedom Is a State of Mind”) 的爆炸前奏仿佛再现（2010年《Maya》专辑的歌曲）“Born Free”。第二首“F.I.A.S.O.M. Pt. 2” 梦回2005年专辑《Arular》拼贴画式的制作细节，也还原出类似的声音特质，多亏泰米尔瑞士歌手Priya Ragu演绎的凶悍hook。

Capping off this early streak is “100% Sustainable,” a maverick stylistic exercise on the order of some of Maya’s most interesting tracks, but with that album’s divisive noise aesthetic traded for a disarming, holistic minimalism. Over nothing but reverb-drenched hand percussion and a field recording of Tamil choir singers, M.I.A. whispers a kind of braggadocio-imbued beat poetry that resonates with endearing amateur energy, until snatches of lyrics clue us into the more specifically gendered (“Sex is your scholarship”) and sociopolitical (“100% organic…no pestibeats”—as in “pesticides”) ambitions of the music.

歌曲“100% Sustainable”褪去早期风格，是专辑里最特立独行的歌曲，有趣的歌曲之一。在这首歌曲后，专辑分裂的噪音美学被超脱完美的极简主义取代。在混响的手摇打击乐和泰米尔唱诗班的现场录音下，M.I.A.轻语说唱一段吹嘘自我的节奏乐段，像是极具感染力的业余选手，但当歌词将我们引向性别话题上—— (“Sex is your scholarship”)和政治议题 (“100% organic…no pestibeats”—as in “pesticides”)她的音乐野心不可忽视。

Starting with the moombahton-influenced “Beep,” Mata burns bright with one pop banger after another: the glistening, vaguely Christian EDM of lead single “The One,” the gleefully sardonic self-worship of the reggaeton “Popular,” and the Tamil soundtrack-sampling bhangra of “Energy Freq.” There’s just the right balance here between new musical directions and a certain earned familiarity, from the rhythmic similarity between “Energy Freq” and Kala’s “Bird Flu,” to the way the looped, guitar sample from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’s “Maps” on “K.T.P. (Keep the Peace)” feels like a callback to M.I.A.’s classic flip of the Clash’s “Straight to Hell” on “Paper Planes.”

从受穆姆巴顿曲风影响的歌曲“Beep”开始，《Mata》便接连出现好几首流行爆曲：波光粼粼，还有点基督EDM曲风的首单“The One”，戏谑讽刺自恋情节的雷鬼歌曲“Popular”,“还有泰米语演唱的（intro）采样印度电影（Anandha Kummi）的彭中戈拉歌曲Energy Freq.”。在探索创新的同时也达到了糅合旧素材的平衡。从“Energy Freq”与《Kala》里的歌曲“Bird Flu”的熟悉韵律，到歌曲“K.T.P.   (Keep the Peace)”中对Yeah Yeah Yeahs乐队歌曲“Maps”重复吉他乐段的采样，似乎再现M.I.A.在歌曲“Paper Planes”中对Clash乐队歌曲“Straight to Hell” 的经典采样。

The last few M.I.A. albums all carved out some space for at least one or two marquee features, but Mata is almost entirely propelled by the strength of M.I.A.’s vocal dexterity and ingenuity, and her arsenal of earworm-worthy flows. (“Tribe,” featuring the late JuiceWRLD, was cut from Mata’s tracklist at the last minute, but you can and should seek it out on YouTube). The only credited feature this time comes on “Puththi,” M.I.A.’s collaboration with another Sri Lankan refugee, Navz-47. “It’s a Thamilan party!” coos M.I.A. on her verse, putting aside her latter-day tendency to build songs around a kind of cultural messiah-like persona (oftentimes tongue-in-cheek, to be fair), and rediscovering a bit of the communal fun of her early music.

前几张M.I.A.的专辑都想打造出至少一两首热单曲目，但《Mata》几乎完全依靠M.I.A.的精湛歌声，深挚创意和个性抓耳的说唱驱动。（歌曲“Tribe”，feat.已故歌手juiceWRLD，最终还是在专辑发行前夕被删除了，但你仍能在Youtube找到此曲）。这次专辑唯一的客座嘉宾为另一位斯里兰卡难民歌手Navz-47，出现在歌曲“Puththi”，（歌词）“It’s a Thamilan party!” M.I.A.在她的唱段轻语道，抛弃了她后期打造文化救世主人格的歌曲模式（严格地说，通常是半开玩笑的），再次挖掘她出道初期做音乐的乐趣。

For an artist who’s weathered as many controversies as M.I.A. has, none of it speaks to the merits of her music. Mata is an album of exhilarating musical riches, triangulating sociopolitical commentary and personal identity in clever ways. Its songs offer savvy new articulations of the M.I.A. autobiography, collate various crises facing the world today into zen-like mantras, and advocate for a radical thinking that starts with a genuine sense of empathy.

对于一个像M.I.A.这样饱受争议的艺术家来说，这些都不能展现她独具匠心的音乐。《Mata》是张内容丰富精彩，以一贯的聪慧做法联结社会事件与个人认同感的专辑。专辑里的歌曲是对M.I.A.生平事迹的另一种崭新叙述，将当今世界的不同危机整理成禅宗般的祷文，并倡导一种以赤诚共情为出发点的激进思维。