Not impressed with our ancient MIA interview? Complex have just posted up a new interview. You can read it here. Or you can just watch the video below. Whatever works.

Theophilus London – Accept the New

Theophilus London – Sorry to Interrupt

…Kala. This is an interview I conducted with MIA back before the release of Kala and before Paper Planes became an international hit. Given the recent dramaz with her New York Times article I though it was worth digging this up. For the record, Maya Arulpragasam was charm personified when I spoke to her. But that was a while back. Anyway, MIA, 2007, for 3D World, before she was proper famous.

For British born M.I.A., recording an album is only half the battle. Once the music is done it’s time to deal with the artwork, conceptualise the video, argue with the record company and then answer inane questions from lazy journalists. Still, it beats being a hooker in Kings Cross…

The “hooker thing” is how Maya Arulpragasam, better known as M.I.A., managed to get herself into London’s prestige St Martins Art College.

“I was at the bus stop outside the college and loads of really cute people were coming out and I was like ‘What’s that building?’” she says. “I wanted to get into art school anyway, I was trying to learn film, but St Martins’ the hardest college to get into – like 16,000 people apply for 20 spaces. So I kinda went in there and emotionally blackmailed them into letting me in… I was, ‘Look, if you don’t let me in I’m gonna be a hooker in three years in Kings Cross.”

It was while at college that Maya met Elastica’s Justine Frischmann. The pair got on famously and when it came time to provide artwork for Elastica’s second album Maya got the call. Ultimately, she ended up following the band around the U.S., videotaping their exploits and directing a videoclip for the band. Inspired by what she saw on the road and encouraged by her new friend Peaches, Maya purchased some cheap equipment when she got back to London and set about recording a six song demo. One of the first songs she completed was Galang. Within the space of a year the track would see her go from obscure British artist to cover star of international magazines and a poster child for the mashing of music genres in the UK underground. The release of her debut album Arular in 2005 cemented that reputation.

Two and a half years later, Maya is back with a new album Kala. And while she could have taken the easy option – the record label was looking for a big budget crossover release with Timbaland at the helm – she’s stuck to her guns and kept things lo-fi and in-house. While megalomaniac isn’t the right word for it, there’s no doubt that Maya likes to retain creative control over as much of her work as possible. Something increasingly difficult, given her ever-growing prominence and the demands associated with it.

“When you actually finish [the album], that’s when it gets really hard – the next sort of two months is the hardest period, I mean for me, because I do all my own artwork and stuff like that,” she says. “So those two months, that’s when you’re thinking about the artwork and putting it all together and you have to go into artist mode, you have to think about videos and your workload actually increases by threefold and, you know, you stop having the luxury of being able to think. It’s ‘Let’s roll out of bed and make some art’. And then you’ve got a hundred people going [adopts nagging tone] “Hi – deadline! People in Timbuktu need artwork’.”

I’m not even sure why I love the book/movie so much? I guess it’s probably the nihilistic sense of doom. But that’s not a very Team Evil thing to write. Um, let’s go with Shannyn Sossamon is hot… And the Dawson is in it

Meanwhile, Bret Easton Ellis has a new book due June 15, Imperial Bedrooms.

Sometime back in the ’90s three heroin junkies from Montreal, Canada, founded a magazine called Vice. A million years later one of those people, Gavin McInnes, left Vice to start his own thing – Street Carnage.

Long story short, McInnes used to write the Dos and Don’ts section of Vice. He was very good at it. It was very popular. He launched his new website back in 2007 (or something) and it’s centred around the same concept – photos of people on the street. Difference being, readers now get to rate the people in said photos. Which is very web 2.0.

Anyway, he’s just released a book of the best ones. You can buy it. Or you can just visit the website and go through the archives, depends how much money you have.

Pretty sure this is no longer considered cute/harmless fun. No doubt PETA will be writing furious letters to everyone concerned as soon as they come across it. Maybe the monkey likes riding bikes and getting dressed up? Maybe the other monkeys don’t understand him and he just wants to ride that bike into the sunset. Maybe he aims to turn pro on the BMX circuit? Maybe I should STFU and get ready to go out…

It’s been a minute since we plugged the Trashbaggery column over at lifelounge. Since we’re trying to make up for the lack of updates this week, now seems as good a time as any… Visit here to watch ‘mad stupid’ YouTube videos and read about Tila Tequila hooking up with DMX, Kings of Leon going chillwave, Britney being the most popular person in the world, Dennis Rodman being crazy, Pinky the cat and thing about a bad case of diarrhea.

Oh man, been such a hectic week. No time to even blog properly. Let’s fix that with some classic Old Dirty Bastard. Shouts to Mel T and her Brooklyn adventures. More updates to follow…

A couple of old Nintendo games that never existed – Neco Touch and Alpaca Farm. Like Nintendogs and Harvest Moon in an alternative dimension. Seems like they would be pretty chill. Much more relaxing than playing Super Street Fighter IV online and losing endlessly until you punch a pillow and storm off in a huff.

Maybe I should just get a Tumblr? I could post random found pics and not have to worry about justifying them with a paragraph. Or even a sentence explaining the lack of paragraph. It would totally free up my schedule and allow me to finally write ‘the great American novel’. Or any novel. Not real fussed… Anyways, the following images are from last night’s web trawl. They didn’t make the cut for my weekly Lifelounge updates, but they were too nice to ignore.