M.I.A. Boldly March The Journey of Refugee In Her New Video "Borders"

M.I.A. boldly march the journey of refugee in her new video “Borders”, a song that infused with strong political message that tastefully crafted it into a pop song for the world to hear.

Maya Arulpragasam aka M.I.A. who has known as a Sri Lankan born rapper/artist just dropped her newest single called “Borders”, a song that straightforwardly questioning the new ‘normal’ of modern society that glorifies westernise terms such as “Queen/Being Bae/Slaying”, and also a song that infused with strong political message that tastefully crafted it into a pop song for the world to hear.

In the self-directed video, M.I.A. stands boldly in front of hundreds of refugees looking lost and desperate. Most of them are trying to climb over a fence, cramped into a boat and crossing dessert, trying to migrate to a better land. One of the images shows M.I.A. stands over a group of men who are forming a human boat shape which symbolising a battleship. Maya bravely shows us the real images of the current world crisis. One of the main reason why she was capable of taking a subject as serious as refugee, because she was once a refugee herself.

As she explained to The Guardian in 2005 after the release of her debut Arular, “I was a refugee because of war and now I have a voice in a time when war is the most invested thing on the planet. What I thought I should do with this record is make every refugee kid that came over after me have something to feel good about. Take everybody’s bad bits and say, ‘Actually, they’re good bits. Now whatcha gonna do?’”

Regardless of your taste and opinion on the crisis itself, M.I.A. freshly new video “Borders” from her forthcoming fifth album, Matahdatah, is worth to watch. (Text Saskia Chairunnisa)