Day 764: M.I.A. And RATM Back To Back At Voodoo

Just the other day, an acquaintance asked me what Indian languages I speak, if any.  When I mentioned Tamil, his next question was, “You’re a Tamil?  Aren’t you the troublemakers in South India and Sri Lanka?”  Oh boy.  I explained that Tamil is a language, which is spoken by those who hail from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, as well as by a Sri Lankan ethnic group known as the Tamils, from whom a militant political group came forth called the Tamil Tigers that violently fights for autonomy from the Sri Lankan government.  In the end, I blamed the colonizing Brits who started the whole mess.

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M.I.A. followed by Zack de la Rocha and the boys on the first evening of Voodoo Fest.  Normally, I’d have to buy two nights’ worth of tickets to see more than one good artist at such a festival, so this is a treat.  To top it all off, they’re playing back to back on adjacent stages!  If you haven’t heard of M.I.A. this is your chance to see her 250bpm body and mouth in action.  This just in from Offbeat: “Every time this Sri Lankan militant“s daughter brings her cacophonous mash-up of third world discontent”Dancehall, Banghra, Afrorap, Grime”a national security republican, somewhere, gets four votes.”  FYI, M.I.A. is the estranged daughter of one of the founders of a Sri Lankan Tamil revolutionary outfit related to the Tamil Tigers I mentioned at the start of this post.

There are those who ask how, as someone of Indian descent who mourned the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, I can stand to listen to Maya Arulapragasam’s music and support her as an artist.  That’s because I’m trying very hard to stop seeing the world in terms of black and white, and to respect the fact that a work can be appreciated beyond the socio-political confines of its creator.   That there is a place in all humans from which comes art, music and culture regardless of their political thoughts, however volatile.  That her first album is just damned good, so let go and dance.

Am I a PLO supporter because I like Muslimgauze‘s music?  No.  Does appreciating Laibach’s tunes or Leni Riefenstahl’s artistic eye automatically make one a Nazi sympathizer?  No.  Does the fact that you watched and liked Splendor In The Grass and On The Waterfront make you sympathetic of Elia Kazan’s political views?  Well, does it?  Conversely, I’m not partial to, say, Midnight Oil’s music but I like their social stance.  In a heterogeneous and ever-changing world, I believe one’s got to be able to separate these things.  Again, however beautiful the art, what if it pays more than just the artist?  There is an economic component, i.e. does any of M.I.A.’s money go towards the organizations she sings about?  This is where my line in the sand with M.I.A. is the same as Manish Vij‘s early 2005 assessment (yes, this argument is that old), i.e. “whether my album and concert dollars go to a great new artist, or to inadvertently funding terrorism. That’s what“s still murky.”

Until these waters clear up, the place to be is the Le Ritual area of the Voodoo “Music Experience” on Friday, October 27th starting 8PM!  Get ready for percussion and cunning linguists!