If You Liked Matangi, You’ll Love M.I.A’s New Song With the Partysquad
M.I.A.’s “Double Bubble Trouble,” a song from her 2013 album Matangi, was great for many reasons, but reason No. 1 was the dancehall-meets-trap production from Dutch duo Partysquad. The Partysquad was responsible for at least a couple of songs on Matangi (the duo also produced “Y.A.L.A.”) and now M.I.A. has made an appearance on their new mixtape, Summermix 2014, which you can download for free here.
For “Gold,” Partysquad bring back the kind of loud, abrasive EDM that first gained them notoriety on Major Lazer’s “Original Don.” But with M.I.A. interpolating Sage the Gemini’s “Gas Pedal” while spitting subversive one-liners about the distance between war and Westerners who “read about it on your Kindle” (she also declares herself “Queen of the East”), it’s actually biting social commentary disguised as an ass-shaking club banger. Unfortunately, it’s all too brief (less than two minutes), so with any luck there’s more where this came from. My personal recommendation for M.I.A. and Partysquad: Make an entire collaborative mixtape.
[Update, July 25, 2014: Stream "Gold" below at the 45:20 mark.]