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June 18, 2005
M.I.A. Remixed
So as I briefly alluded to when posting my M.I.A./N.W.A. mix last week, M.I.A.'s record label XL Recordings made a few M.I.A. acappellas available on their website back in April. Their goal was to kickstart "Online Piracy Funds Terrorism", an "anyone can participate"-type project that invited folks to create and upload their own M.I.A. remixes and collectively build some sort of collaborative online sequel to the Diplo mixtape that did so much to amplify M.I.A.'s buzz late last year.
It's sort of fascinating to watch big record companies and other large corporations attempt to embrace the mash-up craze and other ideas from "remix culture". Because of potential liabilities and other legal concerns, these businesses wind up having to be very careful and calculated...so that they can simultaneously advance their own promotional goals without exposing themselves to any lawsuits. Last spring, DavidBowie.com partnered with Sony and Audi to give away a TT Coupe and a bunch of other prizes to the people who created the best mashups of one old David Bowie song and one new Bowie song from his 2003 album Reality. The mashups couldn't contain copyrighted music from any other artists, though they were allowed to contain various loops and beats from the loop libraries included with ACID, Sony's popular loop-based music production software.
This "Online Piracy Funds Terrorism" project also shows a few signs of having been meticulously cleared by record company lawyers. On the web page where one might upload one's mix, there's a clause that says the remixer confirms that "all rights in and to the remixed versions of the recordings" belong to both Zomba Publishing and XL Recordings. I haven't consulted my lawyer friends on exactly what those various prepositions mean, but I'm 99% sure that this clause nixes the possible use of, say, an N.W.A. track. And unless I finish up a Jacuzzi Brothers/"Bucky Done Gun" remix that I started playing around with, I probably won't be uploading any rights-ceding mp3s to the XL site.
Of course, I'm sure that Diplo never signed off on a similar clause after finishing the original Piracy Funds Terrorism Vol. 1 mixtape. And I doubt that the people at XL/Beggars really care much about the clause anyway, it's probably just a cover-your-ass maneuver while they look the other way. One of the guys behind mashup clearinghouse site boomselection.info humorously described the "Online Piracy Funds Terrorism" project as "a direct invitation to bootleggers everywhere to do the marketing people at Beggar's Banquet a favour".
If that's accurate, I guess that makes me just another remixing cog in the industry's promotional machine. But I don't really mind, 'cause Arular is a really dope album and I think it's pretty cool when any corporation actually seems to want me to rethink or transform its product in some way instead of merely consuming it as-is.
Plus, it's been a ton of fun trying to come up with new ideas for M.I.A. blends. My newest one uses the instrumental track from one of the freshest old-school hip-hop tracks ever: "On The Radio" from legendary harmonizing rappers Crash Crew. You can download it here:
Beats That Made The Crash Crew Bang
When I first tried out this mix, I liked how completely natural the "Pull Up The People" chorus sounded over that funky keyboard line. Those grimy-ass Arular beats are great and all, but I'm finding that M.I.A. rocks equally hard over synth-y 80s-ish funk tracks. Beats that make ya bang bang bang...
Posted by Tim at June 18, 2005 04:43 PM
Comments
The [Beats That Made The Crash Crew Bang] link just goes back to this post, sucka
Posted by: Dav at June 19, 2005 01:53 PM
Oops, missing equal sign between the "href" and the URL...that's what I get for typing it myself. Thanks for the bad link alert!
Posted by: Tim at June 19, 2005 02:50 PM
Hey, was that the Diplo remix of "Hollaback Girl" you (or Tito) played Saturday?
Posted by: Todd P at June 21, 2005 02:48 PM
No, that was actually the original version. That Diplo shit is pretty bananas, but personally I think I prefer Pharrell's simple step-show beat....
Posted by: Tim at June 21, 2005 10:33 PM