Photo: Courtesy of XL Recordings.
Perhaps two years late, but M.I.A. has a problem with Drake's whole YOLO dogma. So, she took to the studio to spit her truth — naturally. The result is a huge, massive, in-your-face club banger that will blow your speakers out.
Drake's 21st century carpe diem redux of only living once is ridiculous to M.I.A. And, her single "Y.A.L.A." combats the go-for-it mantra with a heavy sound and bold-faced callouts. "YOLO? I don't even know any more. What that even mean, though?" M.I.A. asks. "If you only live once, why we keep doin' the same sh*t? Back home, where I come from, we keep being born again, and again, and again, and again — that's why they invented karma." She also name drops Julianne Moore, which, well, read into it what you will.
To drive her point home, M.I.A.'s riffed on the Arabic slang term "yalla" for "let's go." So, which sonic mantra do you believe? If we only live once, then yalla; let's go live. If we screw up on the flip side, fine; we'll always live again, yalla.