Some performers start a riot wherever they land, sending shock waves through the crowd and leaving anyone present helpless to resist the mayhem.
While M.I.A.’s shows might feel like riots, they’re actually unifying, strengthening experiences. It’s just that on the surface, the crowd appears to be tearing itself apart.
“Cops on both sides kind of shut us down,” M.I.A. said recently from her tour bus, referring to a late-April show at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in which 50 eager fans rushed the stage (at M.I.A.’s request) to dance with their idol.
“People were like fainting and climbing up the scaffolding so they could see,” she continued. “The security was beating people up and fights were breaking out in the tent. It just seemed like a big soupy, steamy mess.”
The MC and producer, also known as Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, is no stranger to chaos. In fact, her music flirts with it regularly, cribbing from a dizzying array of global influences from hip-hop, dancehall and electro-funk to U.K. garage and Eastern music.
But it’s the confident, neon-tinged presentation and bald politics that often net her the most attention. And Arulpragasam, who plays the Fillmore on Saturday, deserves every ounce of it.
Her two proper albums — 2005’s “Arular” and 2007’s “Kala” — were widely praised as each year’s most bracing release, shepherding rebellious diversity and, more important, hard-hitting dance soundtracks into an indie scene long satisfied with its gender, ethnic and stylistic uniformity.
The blog buzz was (and continues to be) deafening because M.I.A.’s music is an endlessly fresh call to arms, an infectious cry for massive dance parties as much as for revolutions against social injustices. Anyone familiar with Arulpragasam’s personal history can easily trace the progression.
As a child she moved among London, Sri Lanka and India for several years, her father a revolutionary in the Sri Lankan separatist movement the Tamil Tigers. Her diverse interests in school led her to painting, album art (she first visited the U.S. with British band Elastica after creating their second album’s cover art), filmmaking and fashion.
But Arulpragasam, who will turn 31 this year, never dared to envision anything as grand as her current lot.
“I just always had the feeling that I would not make it to 32 or something,” she said. “I always used to tell my mom that I have to do everything like it’s my last time doing it.”
Arulpragasam’s tendency to stick her neck out, whether creatively or by visiting dangerous Third World environments to work with kids, probably only furthers that feeling.
“If you ask me now what I think I’ll be doing in a year or two years from now, I don’t know. Sometimes I just wake up and can’t really see my future,” she said. “But I’m getting married, so I think maybe that’s the future. It might give me a bit more stability.”
Despite her constant touring, Arulpragasam is in a more stable place than she has been in some time, living in Brookyln’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighboord since January. By her estimation, it’s the longest she’s lived in the same place in years.
Of course, her visa runs out in June, but by then she’ll be knee-deep in producing her third album — and still fretting over her social responsibilities.
“It’s really difficult because on the one hand what I’d like to achieve is to be modest in my lifestyle, and if you want to live by example that’s probably the best way to do it,” she said. “I want to be a good woman and person and an exciting artist.
“But I have to find time to help more people, and get more kids involved in music. Sometimes I get so frustrated that I don’t do enough to help the situation in Sri Lanka. At the same time, I know it’s something that could kill me. It’s so lawless trying to go down there in the state that it’s in now.”
Maybe it’s Arulpragasam’s patchwork identity that pulls her in so many directions: Even as she continues to tour and conceptualize her new album, she’s preparing her own clothing line. If you’ve seen her bright, attention-getting outfits, you would know what a challenge that is.
Think wild headbands, neon leggings, sparkling bomber jackets and T-shirts with prints you can see from space. She even recently modeled a clothing line for designer Marc Jacobs.
“I made my dress in the car on the way to Coachella, and I think it worked, considering it was kind of last minute,” Arulpragasam said. “My mom is a seamstress so I just felt like it was coming straight from my living room.”
But Arulpragasam’s search for balance in her life is inextricable from her creative persona, which similarly resists labels and permanent homes.
“Sometimes merely being brown is difficult because you’re not white and you’re not black, and you can sometimes fall down the middle,” she said. “No one knows where to place your videos, your songs, your fashion, your interview in a magazine. You don’t belong anywhere, but you just belong everywhere. It’s blessing and a curse.”
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
M.I.A.
Hip-hop/electro. Fillmore Auditorium, 1510 Clarkson St. Saturday. 8 p.m. $25. 303-830-8497 or .
