Just days after releasing the first song, “Born Free,” off of her upcoming third album, MIA has released the accompanying music video, directed by Romain Gavras. Clocking in at nine minutes, the video is a graphic, violent depiction of American soldiers forcefully capturing and executing a targeted minority. Watch the video below:
[video:http://vimeo.com/11219730 425×344]
For unknown reasons, the American soldiers in this video are cleansing the city of young, red-haired men. The focus on the violent acts of rounding up the men, coupled with their brutal murders, is heightened in this video because the motives of the soldiers and the history of these red-haired men are unknown. We are only shown a small window into an unnamed, unplaced city that appears rife with political turmoil. This allows for clearer commentary on the politics and practice of hate, violence, authority, and otherness.
MIA has never been one to shy away from making her music political, and this video is testament to the fact that she’s not losing any steam. The song pairs incredibly with the video, with the driving, repetitive beat fueling the frantic and frightening feeling that the images evoke.
While one of the only things to wonder about after watching something like Lady GaGa’s long-format video for “Telephone” is whether or not she got paid for all that product placement, MIA manages to be one step ahead of the game, and we still can’t wait to see what her upcoming album, being released on June 29th, has in store.
