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M.I.A.: Maya In Action :: URB tried, and failed to show M.I.A. the time of her life. We got a snapshot of her life instead.

By Si Hawkins   Photography by Liz Arthur Johnson

05/17/07 :: URB 147

This being the party issue, URB’s original plan for M.I.A. was to attend a rooftop bash thrown by a friend at her UK label, XL. But at the last minute she nixed that idea, deciding to do something a little more in keeping with her album’s multi-cultural vibe, suggesting a mini world tour of London. Only problem: on a Monday night the rest of the city can’t really keep up.

First up, we head to a Jamaican bar called The Shacklewell Arms, usually loud and proud, but tonight, like a morgue. Clearly it isn’t going to miraculously get busy, so Maya makes a few furtive phone calls to some old mates in the hope of finding a proper party somewhere, anywhere. She’d been trying to locate a Nigerian wedding originally, but “all the Nigerians I know said, ‘We don’t do Mondays.’” Neither does anyone else by the look of it.

Leaving the pub, we manage to lose her momentarily as she wanders into the aforementioned Fenerbahçe, the owner already agitated by the time URB catches up. Having outstayed our welcome, we happen upon a deserted market where Maya takes residence on an empty stall and makes a few further calls before being shooed away by another disgruntled employee. This must be what life’s like for those disenfranchised teenagers you hear about. Chastened, we head off to Maya’s own teen hangout, the infamous Chicksand Estate.

Nowadays, East London’s Brick Lane is a thriving tourist attraction, a great cavalcade of curry houses leading to a newly-gentrified artistic district, full of trendy bars and clubs. Back in Maya’s mid-teens, however, this was a no-go area ruled by South Asian gangs. As a Sri Lankan, she was something of an outsider herself, lured there by the promise of a “youth club with some decks in it,” and eventually accepted into a gang from the nearby estate, one of three girls among 100 often violent geezers. “Then they all got into heroin, in the space of about three weeks,” she says. “It all calmed down after that, and all the bars opened up.”

She still recognizes faces as we wander along, checking in with younger brothers of old associates and enquiring if any parties might be in progress. The best we can do tonight is look in on a couple of local youth clubs, she’s told, and so we head along to what at first glance seems to be a derelict office building. The windows are glass-less, the staircases dark and there’s an enormous box of garbage in the lobby. The only party you’d expect to find here is a crack party, but Maya confidently mounts the stairs, warning us to hang back for the moment. Ten minutes later we follow, with some trepidation, and bump into Maya heading rapidly back the other way. The guy who runs the place isn’t keen on journalists hanging out there, apparently. “They just want to be able to smoke a joint in peace.”

It’s high time for us to retire and do the same.

 

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