Afrikan Boy

The recent M.I.A./New York Times controversy has just been kind of boring on all fronts. I’ve skipped a lot of the web chatter on the matter, but I did read Nitsuh Adebe‘s thoughtful and measured analysis for Pitchfork, and the one good thing I took away from it was an appreciation for M.I.A.’s Nigerian (by way of London) protege, Afrikan Boy.

His image of a third-world hustle is a hundred times more resonant than most of M.I.A.’s– it involves standing out on the highway selling sugar. On one of his own tracks, “Lidl”, it’s about sneaking into the UK and getting caught shoplifting from supermarket chains.

Compare this with M.I.A., who so often wraps herself in the idea of political violence and armed resistance– things that make a much more exciting package for Western audiences, but can also be a lot more cartoonish and self-aggrandizing. Part of it is surely just the background difference between Nigeria and Tamil Sri Lanka, but M.I.A.’s the one trying to bridge these things. If she ever talked about a plastic bag full of gasoline, you get the feeling she’d add a match and make it a bomb. If it were Afrikan Boy, it’d just be something kids sell to people with cars to make a little money. Afrikan Boy is being funny in “Lidl”, and yet I still take what he’s saying way more seriously than I take the popstar who introduced me to him.

With or without authentic third-world street cred, Afrikan Boy’s music is just plain fun and catchy. Plus he’s adorable and never seems to stop smiling!