M.I.A. released her new single “Popular” on Friday (Aug. 12) along with an unsettling music video.
In the clip, the British rapper takes on the training of “M.A.I,” her ultra-hip cyborg look-alike, to become an artificially intelligent influencer. Dressed in matching pale yellow bucket hats and green-and-black patterned shirts, M.I.A. teaches the robot to flip her hair, mimic her swaggering attitude and gain endless validation on the Internet, all while she sing-raps, “Yeah, love me like I love me, love me/ Suddenly it’s about me, ’bout me/ Now you wanna be around me, ’round me/ ‘Cause I love myself, I’m livin’ my best life.”
However, just as M.A.I. is ready to take Instagram and TikTok by storm, M.I.A. pulls a surprising move by putting the robot out of commission with a couple squirts from a water gun.
The hypnotic track follows “The One” as the second single from M.I.A.’s upcoming studio set MATA, which is set to be released via Island Records some time in the coming months.
Speaking about the themes of the coming album, the artist hinted in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, “The genre of music that — genres, I should say — is all very much like egocentric. It’s not like I’m an artist that came through gospel or something. For me, it was like to have that journey, and also, it was a significant time to discuss like Islamophobia … talking about wars in the Middle East, and things like that.”
This September, M.I.A. will headline San Francisco’s New Portola Festival along with The Chemical Brothers, Flume and Kaytranada.
Watch the music video for M.I.A.’s “Popular” below.