Roundup: The Best Songs to Mug and/or Illegally Border-Cross to...
M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” came out in 2007. But when the stoner flick of 2008 stuck it into a trailer, it became this year’s “A Milli” – the must-have instrumental for rappers and R&B smoothies to put to their own purposes. (Of course, “A Milli” was also this year’s “A Milli,” but that’s not important right now.)
This week, “Paper Planes” entered Billboard’s top five for the second time, and a just-released Rick Ross freestyle suggests that the remixes aren’t drying up anytime soon. M.I.A. remix fever is starting to spread throughout her catalogue, with Jay-Z and Wale among the MCs to rap over her frenetic single “Boyz.”
(Bonus viral-phenomenon trivia! The Clash sample on “Paper Planes,” from “Straight to Hell,” is actually an interpolation, replayed by a musician named Jesse Novak, aka Tugboat, on bass and guitar in his kitchen; Novak also worked on that great cartoon where Akon and T-Pain meet up at the mall and Snoop Dogg serves them a “butternut reduction.”)
Here’s a roundup of some of the best interpretations so far…
Rick Ross
Why it works: The instrumental’s sunny guitar haze is a perfect backdrop for Ross’ lazy Miami rasp. Also he winks at the song’s Wreckx-N-Effect influence with a little “zoom zoom zoom in the boom boom” tossed in for good measure.
On a scale of 1-10, how heavily does it engage with M.I.A.’s original immigration subtext? 1. Rick Ross is concerned only with immigration if the immigrants are illegal and by “immigrants” you mean “several kilos of cocaine stuffed into condoms.”
Esau Mwamwaya
Why it works: Malawian singer Mwamwaya, who just released an excellent mixtape including this take as well as a collaboration with Vampire Weekend, sings an entirely new, stunningly joyous vocal line over the beat, for the most radical interpretation of the bunch.
On a scale of 1-10, how heavily does it engage with M.I.A.’s original immigration subtext? The only word we can pick out is tengazako, which Google informs us might mean ‘take what’s yours’. We don’t know what Malawian for Lou Dobbs is, though.
Rye Rye and Afrikan Boy
Why it works: Rye Rye is a teen femcee from Baltimore – her “Shake it to the Ground” is a must-have. Here she gives props to the song’s original proprietor before advocating clean living (never do drugs), and generally proving that button-cute and swagger-licious need not be mutually exclusive terms. Afrikan Boy is a Nigerian MC given to charmingly chunky lines that don’t always click into meter – here he pens a little love letter to the biggest hustler he knows: “My mother.”
On a scale of 1-10, how heavily does it engage with M.I.A.’s original immigration subtext? 8. Rye-Rye addresses M.I.A.’s own INS problems, while Afrikan Boy talks about doctoring Visas in his bedroom.
Rich Boy and Bun-B
Why it works: Houston vet Bun-B is astoundingly nimble as he hopscotches across the track and encourages some healthy civil disobedience: “Get your Robin Hood on, put some pressure on the Man.” Rich Boy sings a love letter to his girlfriend, who turns out to in fact be a .45. “She motherfuckin’ crazy!”
On a scale of 1-10, how heavily does it engage with M.I.A.’s original immigration subtext? 1. Both MCs prefer the robbery subtext.
