Following M.I.A.'s recent collaboration with Baauer and G-Dragon on the bass-heavy banger titled "Temple," the UK rapper is back with two new tracks: "MIA OLA" which samples from The Lion King's "Circle Of Life," and "Foreign Friend." Upon release, she took to Twitter to urge listeners to stream, download and share the politically-charged tracks "B 4 Disney shut it down!"
TO FLYPIRATES and DJS - THIS IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM MIA !!!! LIVE @ THE BORDER OLA !!!! SPREAD THE WAVES https://t.co/7pjxteScK8
— M.I.A (@MIAuniverse) March 17, 2016
The artist uploaded the pair of new songs to her Soundcloud as one long track with the following message: "O ALL MY FLYPIRATES and DJS - THIS IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT !!!! LIVE FROM THE MEXICAN BORDER OLA !!!! MIA ON THE WAVES"
The two-track mixtape starts with the boisterous "MIA OLA" which features the rapper's quick-witted lyrics about human rights issues like immigration spit over frenetic production, including an obvious sample of "Circle Of Life." As SPIN reports, the track premiered at Stella McCartney's fall 2016 fashion show.
Next up is the chiller, scaled-back "Foreign Friend" which features a more laidback beat, but goes in even harder than even previously-released "Borders" on the issue of immigration. Standout lyrics include: "Better tell somebody, I'm an immigrant / When I jump that fence I'm gonna get a Benz / Then I leave my tent and I'm gonna be your foreign friend."
Listen to the pair of tracks below.
The artist has been working on Matahdatah, the forthcoming follow-up to 2013's Matangi, but it remains unclear if the new songs are a part of that project.
While the details of the impending LP's release are vague, frequent collaborator and producer Blaqstarr posted an image that appears to be the artwork for an OLA mixtape featuring the rapper doing a headstand atop a pillow "Somewhere near the coast of Brazil" on his Instagram, Rolling Stone reports.
A photo posted by blaqstarr (@blaqstarr) on Mar 17, 2016 at 9:21am PDT
