M.I.A. - M.I.7

Announced out of the blue, the seventh album by Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., titled simply – and none too imaginatively – “M.I.7”, lands at a politically degrading moment on the international stage, much like the one we're living through right now. Not an irrelevant detail for a rapper like the English musician of Tamil origin, who has always taken a stand against so-called Western imperialism (and more besides), starting with her own status as a former refugee, forced to flee as the war in Sri Lanka escalated when she was just a girl.

Structured like the Book of Revelation (!), “M.I.7” presents itself right from the cover – depicting seven symbols, each corresponding to an interlude on the album – as, first and foremost, a “messianic” record. The number seven, which echoes throughout, is in fact a nod to John's own “Revelation”, the twenty-seventh and final book of the New Testament, and the last of the Christian Bible. A narrative device that deliberately recurs several times, referring in turn to the seven churches, the seven seals, the seven trumpets and the seven bowls of wrath.

This time around, then, M.I.A. is aiming to think big, at least on a strictly thematic level.

Recorded across locations as varied as Ethiopia, Egypt, India, London, Australia and Los Angeles, and over seven days spent with each of the seven producers enlisted for the project, “M.I.7” makes use of the seven evangelical trumpet blasts to draw attention and stage a ceremony through which M.I.A. voices her moral disapproval and, depending on the moment, advances her own spiritual creed, even styling herself as a “spell-breaker”.

Well, setting aside all the numerology and the religiously evocative trappings, musically M.I.A. abruptly abandons the turbulence of her past work to embrace a kind of urban mass free of hip-hop broadsides and electro flashes, within which she lays out, track by track, her own remedy for the ills of our time, amid undercover angels wielding swords of fire (“PRAYER 777”), rulers of darkness (“JESUS”) and armor to be lowered once the battle is over (“Sacred Heart”).

In this back-and-forth of trumpet blasts (aptly titled “TRUMPET”) and biblical proclamations, though, the deep spark is missing – in short, everything just flows by without leaving a mark, save for a handful of moments of Tamil tribalism, as in “MONEY”, while a spiritual, almost gospel-like approach dominates throughout, as in the emblematic “CALLING”, the song that best sums up Arulpragasam's new direction.

I’ve been in a cage before (I’ll see you there)

I’ve seen angels open cell doors (I’ll see you there)

I seen prison walls fall (I’ll see you there)

And Satan’s not bigger than God (I’ll see you there)

There's also room for purely pop moments like the radio-friendly “EVERYTHING”, ahead of the thirty-three (a coincidence?) minutes of religious silence placed at the very end, through which M.I.A. conjures earthly peace, echoing the silence in heaven described in Revelation after the opening of the seventh seal, just before the trumpets sound once more.

It's the provocative close to an album that's hugely ambitious on a conceptual level but decidedly underwhelming in its melodic and stylistic execution. To put it plainly: from a musician as consistently inspired and uncompromising as the fifty-year-old M.I.A., one certainly expected more. The hope, then, is that this spiritual turn isn't the beginning of the end, but merely an isolated stumble.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

19/04/2026