Posted by Chris Randle on 02/06/2011 at 1:00 PM Videos

The Popdust Files: m.i.a.

In between posting thrifted outfits and quoting Tupac, M.I.A. just tweeted a music video of sorts for the first part of her new Vicki Leekx mixtape. After a 2010 dominated by botched shows, baffled reactions to her third album /\/\/\Y/\ (or Maya, if you like your titles readable) and one disastrous magazine profile, the globe-spanning MC’s party mix was a well-produced comeback. (She released it for download on New Year’s Eve, a slyly appropriate move when you hear how big some of these beats are.)

Most of her collaborators on the tape are familiar—Diplo, Switch, Blaqstarr, Danja—and the Vicki Leekx clip doesn’t actually stray too far from that divisive /\/\/\Y/\-era aesthetic. It spins around the cities of a model Earth, segues to a digital collage resembling what might happen if you dragged your browser window around really fast, and ends with characteristic provocation by going from M.I.A. concert footage to Wikileaked combat footage. Good music, though. For an artist so often accused of blurting out incoherent political statements to stir controversy, maybe her real problem with /\/\/\Y/\ was overthinking it.