M.I.A.
And that's what this album is about. It's like, "Guess what: I came from the fucking mud hut and I got here and I'm here and I did it in 15 fucking years flat." [source]
M.I.A. doesn't belong to you. She belongs to everyone except you. Do you see it? Look closer:
This video of M.I.A. performing live in what looks like a sub-basement at MTV is pretty much the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life. Watch it in full-screen.
We -- all of us in New York, LA, the middle class, the United States of America, Europe, the industrialized world -- are obsolete now. We just need to drop a giant bomb on ourselves and get out of her way. Look at what she is doing. We don't matter anymore, even if we're too arrogant to admit it.
Don't believe me? Take another look at this:
Do you see it? That right there is the aesthetic of the 21st century. And guess what...it doesn't belong to us.
I've been wondering for a long time what post-post-modernism would look like. This is it. We can all stay home now: there is nothing more for us to say.