“Teqkilla” is one of those M.I.A. tracks that leave you feeling like you need to be under the influence of something to truly “get”. Yeah, that can describe most of Maya’s output, but usually we can find some element in her kooky, international music-informed art-pop patchworks to lovingly grasp onto while sober. In it’s twisted cacophony of synth blurts and bleets, dubstep-y tribal thump and chanted shout-outs to various alcoholic beverages, “Teqkilla”, /\/\ /\ Y /\‘s latest single, lacks that one magic ingredient to pull it all together and help transcend it from mad scientist studio experiment to off-kilter pop genius.
That is until this remix arrived, boasting a guest appearance from the one and only Nicki Minaj, one artist we’d strangely never thought of ever pairing M.I.A. with despite their similarities in mic…ahem, “animated-ness”. “It’s going d-d-d-d-d-down/ Everything slo-mo in the background”, launches Nicki at the beginning of a deliciously wacky verse inflected with that strange English-Jamaican accent she enjoys so much, instantly triggering wishes that she and Maya will hook up for an entire collaborative mixtape and vibe off each other’s respective eccentricity.
Hell, maybe with an added M.I.A. sixteen, “Massive Attack” would make some sort of sense.
Posted on M.I.A’s blog earlier today under the title “War Crimes and French Fries”, alongside images of NYT news clipping and audio snippets of the Lynn Hirschberg-led interview, “I’m A Singer (Haters)” finds the singer/ rapper (/chanter?) bringing the beef to the aural realm, employing the electro-riddims of Various Productions’ 2005 single “Hater” to help support her takedown of Lynn (“Why the hell would journalists be thick as shit?/ Cause lies equals power equals politics”).
How sad is our lives that we are now yearning to hear a wax response (whether rapped, sung, talk-chanted, or Auto-Tuned) from Hirschberg to really make this rivalry interesting…?
Apparently Robyn thinks she’s Sade, what with the way she’s been cruelly holding out on releasing a new album (It may have only been five years since Robyn first hit stores, but that’s like, what, a thousand lifetimes in pop music time). Hopefully, though, the wait may be over sooner rather than later, as a possible early preview of the still-untitled LP has made it’s inevitable way to the Internets recently.
Previously sampled in it’s early stages via a brief YouTube clip back in December, the Diplo-helmed “No Hassle” casts Robyn as a patois-adopting “dancehall queen”, turning heads and garnering various shout-outs with the way she winds her body to the DJ’s hypnotic reggae-pop groove; all that she asks is that you don’t bother her while she’s lost in the rhythm’s “boom boom boom”.
Compared to Robyn’s previous catalogue highlights, “No Hassle” does seem a bit lacking in “wow” moments (Diplo’s production provides a mostly basic exercise of the dubstep/ dancehall sound), but that’s neither here nor there considering it carries a sturdy amount of pop hookiness and, hell, is A…NEW…ROBYN…JAM.
While we would have been perfectly fine with Eve re-entering the game with something on par with her brilliant 2007 single “Tambourine” (from that never-released Here I Am project), the once-self-proclaimed “pitbull in the skirt” has curiously opted on bringing her lengthy hiatus to a close instead with “Me N My”, a dubstep (!!!) record jointly helmed by Salaam Remi and genre beat-crafter Benga (it swipes the backing track from the latter’s Diary of An Afro Warrior album cut “E Trips”) that never quite gels into the left-field mind-blower it seems to think it is.
To be fair, “Me N My”‘s faults don’t necessarily fall on it’s fierce beat (a juttering riddim that grabs hold of a creepy, “creatures stalking you in a dark alley-way” type of menacing club vibe), but Eve’s inability to bring much to it. Soullessly rapped musings about how her and her bitches get down at the hot nightspot might work for a hook, but when stretched over two verses and choruses that numbingly meld into one long lyric, her contribution completely bores, making us long for a cameo from Missy Elliott, MIA or Santigold to help color the production with their own respective weirdo-chant pizazz.
We’re all for American rappers trying to experiment with different styles (especially long-missed female ones), but when it sounds like your heart’s not really all that into it (both the track and re-entering the game), we say step aside and let an actually hungry emcee have the honors.
As nice as it is to get free music, think of how much better your soul would feel if you purchased it the old-fashioned way.
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(MP3 posts are for promotional and/ or previewing purposes only; if any artist or their representation wish to have the links removed, contact me and I will happily comply!)
“Teqkilla” is one of those M.I.A. tracks that leave you feeling like you need to be under the influence of something to truly “get”. Yeah, that can describe most of Maya’s output, but usually we can find some element in her kooky, international music-informed art-pop patchworks to lovingly grasp onto while sober. In it’s twisted cacophony of synth blurts and bleets, dubstep-y tribal thump and chanted shout-outs to various alcoholic beverages, “Teqkilla”, /\/\ /\ Y /\‘s latest single, lacks that one magic ingredient to pull it all together and help transcend it from mad scientist studio experiment to off-kilter pop genius. 
While we would have been perfectly fine with Eve re-entering the game with something on par with her brilliant 2007 single
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