Sex, Language, and M.I.A.

I take a liberal approach to my vocation as a guardian of the English language. That’s one reason I love M.I.A., the British-Sri Lankan dancehall rapper who made a splash in 2005 with her album Arular. Her lyrics, cadences, and accents take Anglophonics all kinds of thrilling new places. Trying to “decipher” the lyrics on Arular, I had the pleasantly nerdy feeling that comes when you can acknowledge your oldness and still really enjoy a piece of “youth” culture. I still don’t know how someone would translate the phrase “bucky done gun” into so-called standard English, but it certainly signifies effectively in the context of the song of that name.

Also opaque, only liminally English at most, and yet wholly effective as a speech act, is this verse from “Hombre”:

Hoytu hoytu
Cept cept (cet cet)
Cinko, quadro
Tres doie
You can call me over

Ok, M.I.A., you’ve convinced me that that would be a good idea. Please come over.

Which brings me to the topic of M.I.A.’s new single, “Hit That,” which is a data file bursting with hot buttered sex talk. Beginning with the query, “Would you like to zoom, zoom, zoom and a-boom boom?” the song becomes a vehicle for the incantation of the phrase “Boys let me see you hit that,” delivered in the sassy sing-song voice that betrays identifiable signs of London, Colombo, Kingston, and Long Island. Added in for good measure is her occasional encouragement to “Tap tap that bed to the wall" (her pronunciation of the word "wall" is where she really seems possessed by Amy Fischer on quaaludes).

First observation: among other things, sex is really good for reminding us of the aliveness of language. Second observation: Even though M.I.A. generally gets a lot of attention from a “political” standpoint—her father was a revolutionary in Sri Lanka, and her lyric “Like PLO/I don’t surrend-o” got her banned from the BBC—she gives off a strong and articulate sense of being deeply pussy-driven, much like the brilliant Missy Elliott (whom M.I.A. namechecks on Arular). One thing about her style of sex discourse that I really like is how she’s simultaneously connotative and direct, like in this passage from “Hombre”:

Excuse me little Hombre
Take my number call me
I can get squeaky
So you can come and oil me

My finger tips and the lips
Do the work yeah
My hips do the flicks
As I walk yeah With a good head
I came to make it With a good head
I came to break it

What’s happening here? Maybe a blow job, maybe masturbation, maybe cunnilingus—all these interpretations and more seem possible, and that plurality is something we expect from good “figurative” language. However, “euphemism” and “suggestion” are certainly not terms that apply.

“Hit That” doesn’t really have anything to match this imagistic orgy, but it has plenty of words that mean sex, and it’s worth finding. The link I downloaded it from is now dead, unfortunately, and word is that it will not appear on her new album, slated for August release.