mixtape maestro

As news of Amy Winehouse’s passing yesterday took over the Trending Topic circuit world-wide, M.I.A. was moved to share an unfinished demo of the recording “27″, initially created prior to the release of last December’s mixtape Vicki Leekx as a dedication to “all my friends that died at 27″.

With or without the Winehouse connection, the song is chillingly haunting, featuring Maya, in her signature sing-song cadence (made all the more eerie in this context), tracking the final days of a troubled pal’s life spent in a drug-and-alcohol-fueled haze against a spooky soundscape of itchy electro burbles, militaristic drum rolls and strings samples.

Catch the song, and it’s lump-in-throat inducing lyrics, below, followed by a newly unleashed (via Big Boi’s Soundcloud page), previously unreleased remix to Amy’s “Tears Dry On Their Own” helmed by the ATL-based Organized Noize/ Dungeon Family crew.

27 by _M_I_A_ (DL)

LYRIX
= = = = = =
said your all mouth and no brains
all rock stars go to heaven
you said you’ll be dead at 27
when we drunk in a English tavern
the owner poured you the Bourbon
and you drunk your self so rotten
he got so rich he bought a Bentley
and moved himself to Devon

you started dirty dancing
and you bar tended a dozen
i took you to the clinic
to get you clean but you couldn’t
said in 2 days ur 27 and and ur destiny was comin
and ur papa passed so sudden
and left you with lil somin

you blew that money on a mountain of drugs
and staged your self a bedin
a month later when i popped in
your still high but the winter set in
i bought you a coffee and a muffin
and you quoted me some Lenin
i wished i was that clever
but thats what kept me coming
your friendship did mean somin
but you left me for nothin
when i left, you befriended a rope
and i found you both were hanging.

Amy Winehouse – “Tears Dry on their Own” (Organized Noize Dungeon Family Remix) by Big Boi (DL)