Video: M.I.A.: "Boyz"
The revolutionary M.I.A. of 2005's Arular must have liked being the life of the party. Sure, beat-heavy "Bird Flu", the first track to leak from forthcoming follow-up Kala, suggests political content with its title, but also shares its name with an Ivory Coast dance craze. New non-album song "Hit That" is about, well, hitting that. On "Boyz", M.I.A. again just wants to have fun.
She's got the right beat for it, anyway. The kind of fractured, horn-accented loop you might hear in a favela-- or, I dunno, Philly-- sets a fiesta-friendly mood, while M.I.A. na-na-nas catchily. "How many boyz there?" she repeats, before adding a perfunctory "How many start a war?" as if to remind you, she's the revolutionary M.I.A.
["Boyz" single out now in the UK on XL; in the U.S. on 07/17/07 on Interscope; from Kala; due 8/21/07 on XL/Interscope]