MIA’s “Go Off,” from her forthcoming album AIM, puts jaded-sounding, almost robotic vocals over a feisty Skrillex beat with Blaqstarr, tough for the club but as ever really makes you think.
In the video, released today, her nonplussed delivery is accompanied by slow-mo images of land being exploded for mining, or highways, or quarries, or resorts. It’s a grotesque sort of beauty: the destruction is palpable, an invasion of the natural order, but it’s also like a moving impressionist painting, slowly bursting into the air in succession, a photogenic tragedy.
AIM has a release date for September 9, reports Pitchfork, and comes in the wake of strife owing to MIA’s statements about Black Lives Matter and ensuing controversy over her headlining slot at Afropunk Festival in England. The lyrics to “Go Off” are fairly nonspecific, but put MIA in a defensive position, including:
I’m gonna talk and you gonna listen
I’m on ten like men, even better than them
Yeah I don’t lose focus like a German called Sven
My third eye’s open and my focus ain’t joking
Yeah You got it wrong, cause my focus is so strong
