London, England, United Kingdom rapper, singer, producer & activist M.I.A. going independent with her 7th LP. Blowing up off her full-length debut Arular that XL Recordings & Interscope Records jointly put out 2 decades earlier, her popularity would begin to increase following the sophomore effort Kala & was even granted her own vanity label N.E.E.T. Recordings by the time ΛΛ Λ Y Λ became her most-left field body of work to date inspiring future acts like Death Grips & PC Music. She eventually fulfilled her Interscope contract by dropping Matangi & AIM, coming off the Island Records-backed MATA to bring M.I.7. towards a new direction.
“Prayer 777” after the “Trumpet” intro technically begins with a remix of the cloudy & experimental Christian hip hop single “Armour” with secondary influences of neo-psychedelia, tribal ambient, ambient pop, ambient dub & dub whereas “Jesus” after another “Trumpet” intermission goes for a hip house vibe asking for the son of God to set her free. “Sacred Heart” reworks “Un Nenju” from the Bells Collection tape talking about what we feel makes us the same while “Money” after the 3rd “Trumpet” interlude annoyingly demanding some bread.
After the 4th “Trumpet” interlude, “Circle” starts the 2nd half asking God to lead her prior to “Calling” after the 5th “Trumpet” interlude talks about following the waves. After the penultimate “Trumpet” interlude, “Ride the Sky” makes an odd Fortnite reference although I understand the concept of good defeating evil while the final song “Everything” after the last “Trumpet” interlude excluding the “30 Minutes of Silence” outro ends M.I.7. talking about chasing bags than looking for them.
We’ve only gotten 3 full-lengths from M.I.A. within the past decade & MATA had me hoping she would continue to take the right path going forward musically, but it pains me to say that M.I.7. could be the weakest entry of her entire discography. It has nothing to do with the predominant Christian hip hop themes because I’ll put it over Will Smith’s comeback Based on a True Story any day, except the overabundance of interludes & the half hour outro make it feel like a glorified EP.
Score: 2/5
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