Fly Pirates: An Analysis of Paper Planes
Amongst the long line of prolific females that pop music has produced, there’s one artist whose name hardly gets mentioned. But there’s no denying M.I.A.’s influence on pop music in all of its genre-bending infectiousness. What better way to encapsulate the droning state of modern political unrest than through a discography that televises a revolution that’s simply too unshakable for the airwaves?
Politics has played an important role throughout the history of pop music, with entire eras documenting the injustice that societies around the world have had to face. Other countries used pop music as a medium to fight for the freedom of artistic expression at the expense of political repression. And while Brazil’s Tropicalia movement reflects the nation’s political state at the end of the 60s, it has always been England whose storied music history keeps political subversion at the forefront of its national culture. The Sex Pistols and The Clash wanted to impeach the Queen. The Smiths’ music alone documented the Iron Lady’s term of societal collapse.
The early aughts would see the breakthrough of grime, whose political subversion was immediate. It gave a voice to the Black British lower class, who have been products of politically systemic neglect. Grime found its place amongst people who were raised in Britain’s urban circuit of council estates. However, its roots posed the inevitability of being physically erased through gentrification, ultimately wiping out flats that stood as landmarks for the genre’s emergence. Grime was where jungle, drum-n-bass, and garage came together to create a sound whose lyricism was predominantly fuelled by adrenaline-inducing production. It’s only one of many genres of music that comprises the sprawling breadth of M.I.A.’s sonic agenda, as well as her most recognizable song to date.
The thought of Paper Planes permeating the airwaves and mainstream music still feels like a blip in a time that nearly everyone forgot. It still gets heavy rotation on any hit radio station in the West, who happen to be the subject of this song. Strip away the earwormy cadences of the British artist, and you’ll find yourself digesting a satirical discourse of how Western media perceives any foreigner crossing its borders.
Where our next door neighbour’s definition of the left and right are boiled down to equally centrist news networks, its current government finds pleasure in frivolous acts of deportation and police brutality. Britain is no different, with deportation leaving thousands of immigrants — be it parents, children, or none of the above — at the hands of authorities who are more likely to misjudge their identity than put them in the hands of safety.
In the eyes of the media, many immigrants around the world seem to have anything but good intentions. Paper Planes opens the gates and reveals the process of immigration, along with the ultimate risk of being misunderstood. It is also one of the most thought-provoking songs in music history.
It all begins with the song’s hook, which is almost everyone’s go-to explanation of the song, if not an immediate introduction to M.I.A.’s music. Diplo and DJ Switch’s onomatopoeia-laden production is a kick in the door. Gunshots and cash registers rejoice alongside an interpolation of Wreckx-N-Effect’s 1992 hit Rump Shaker:
All I wanna do is
And a
And take your money
All I wanna do is
And a
And take your money
All I wanna do is
And a
And take your money
All I wanna do is
And a
And take your money
As bluntly satirical as it is, so is the entire song itself. It does not sugarcoat a common stereotype attached to immigrants, unjustly classifying them as people meant to be feared by many. The chorus bluntly references the major fears people have in regards to immigrants, who they think will take their jobs and steal their profits. Ironically enough, the song’s music video contrasts these lyrics with footage of hardworking immigrants operating a food truck.
Paper Planes’ infectious opening verse introduces one of many characters that M.I.A. takes on throughout the entirety of Kala. Her sophomore album presents her as a multi-faceted globetrotter whose inspiration is drawn from a multitude of sounds from various cultures (Baltimore club, Aussie rap, Indian bhangra, Brazilian funk, and so on). On this song, M.I.A. is a passport counterfeiter situated at a train station with a mean rep:
I fly like paper, get high like planes
If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name
If you come around here, I make ’em all day
I get one done in a second if you wait
The first line can be put simply, as passport counterfeiters are not only one of many gateways to immigration, but embody the action of immigration itself. Some of them come and go, reaching other lands once the work they’ve had to do is done. The most important gateway to immigration for many is a paper plane, no pun intended.
Due to unstable circumstances in certain countries or a government who neglects immigrants and refugees altogether, counterfeit passports are risks and last resorts. A paper plane is a metaphor for a visa, but also “[flying] like planes” literally means that many immigrants get here via airplanes. They go through the lengthy process needed to secure travel here. Nonetheless, it’s immediately assumed they came here through preconceived means.
Sometimes I think sittin’ on trains
Every stop I get to I’m clocking that game
Everyone’s a winner, we’re making our fame
Bona fide hustler making my name
M.I.A. ‘s business as a passport counterfeiter is pretty much locked down at every area on a particular train line, giving her quite the mean rep. Given past context that the song is about immigrants and immigration, it continues the theme of being an immigrant (perhaps first-generation) in a new country. “Sitting on trains” is a metaphor for traveling into a new country or city, and every stop is “clocking that game”; the game of capitalism. It’s about making money and trying to move up in the world. Everyone’s a winner because there is no real competition when it is about being happy. Immigrants are about establishing themselves in a new place, making their fame and making their name by “hustling”, or working.
The song’s second verse continues to conjure up stereotypical imagery commonly perpetuated towards immigrants:
Pirate skulls and bones
Sticks and stones and weed and bongs
Running when we hit ‘em
Lethal poison for the system
Pirate skulls and crossbones are commonly tied to pirates who flee their country by ship and attack their intended territory. This imagery reflects the furtively violent and murderous behaviours of many governments, including (and most notably) the Sinhalese government from M.I.A.’s native Sri Lanka. Then again, this imagery also reflects the misconception that people have of all immigrants having violent and murderous behaviours and intentions. For government systems, sticks and stones (a metaphor for youth protests) and illegal drugs hold both a dangerous and revolutionary power. This only further proves the level of incivility brought by immigrants from a racist and xenophobic perspective.
Running when we hit ‘em
Lethal poison for the system
This last line alludes to the dangerous chemicals and other toxins put into food and water by global suppliers and food manufacturers. This could also be a metaphor for what immigrants are assumed to cause. People who are xenophobic believe that immigrants do not benefit the country they settle in because they believe that all immigrants will ever do is wreak havoc upon the system that its native citizens have been living in for the longest time.
Because of this preconceived notion, they would assume that immigrants will ruin the way they’ve been living, making their lives harder to adjust to. This could also be a direct reference to the infamous saying “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. Even if protesters hold a lot of power for their actions, they are believed to be “lethal poison” for the system because they cause inconvenience towards any unjust government that they protest against.
No one on the corner has swagger like us
Hit me on my burner prepaid wireless
We pack and deliver like UPS trucks
Already going to hell, just pumping that gas
The first line of this stanza was sampled as the chorus for “Swagga Like Us”, T.I.’s posse cut with Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, and Kanye West. It also simply addresses the fact that the hard work that immigrants do is unique from other people from different walks of life. On the corner could either refer to street corners where some immigrants run illegal businesses or the street corner where the food truck in the song’s music video is situated. Both places symbolize the distinctly unique hustle that immigrants turn to for a variety of reasons. Where a street corner can symbolize the status of some lower-class immigrants who turn to drug dealing, it can also be a starting place for immigrants who start their own businesses (ie — food trucks, jewelry stands, etc).
The second line of this stanza refers to a burner phone, which is a throwaway cell phone and normally would be a prepaid phone. The purpose of having a burner phone is for communicating for the purpose of criminal activity, making the phone easier to dispose since it is harder to trace criminals in case police try to catch them. Other times, people will use them for routine communication between contacts, and dispose of the phone discreetly should a contact become compromised, which is very common for those involved in the black market.
M.I.A. has said that this song was also inspired by the TV series The Wire, since the show’s characters communicate using burner phones. Prepaid wireless is also commonly used by members of the lower class. Immigrants turn to these methods in order to stay in touch with friends and relatives overseas. This dynamic would be the driving force behind what is now known as WhatsApp. In this sense, the second line of this stanza can be seen as a double entendre for burner phones being used for illegal businesses and as a last resort for communicating via illegal immigraition.
The third line of this stanza likens packing drugs for delivery to the way that the United Parcel Service (UPS) operates its business. It also refers to the fact that immigrants (like M.I.A.) are the ones who have these kinds of jobs (in the legal sense). They could be pumping your gas, driving you around, and delivering your mail. Immigrants are everywhere helping get things done, and this line contrasts between the stereotypical importance of immigrant jobs and the kinds of jobs that immigrants actually pursue.
The last line of this stanza conveys multiple meanings:
1. This song samples Mick Jones’s guitar riff from The Clash’s “Straight To Hell”, which was written from the perspective of a bigot reacting to South Asian immigrants. Aside from the context of the sample being a fitting choice given Paper Planes’ subject matter, in this case, MIA and the people she discusses here are already going “straight to hell” as Joe Strummer’s fictional bigot suggests, and they’re pumping the gas. In this case, they’re making the trip go even faster.
2. Pumping that gas could also refer to a common immigrant job, which is working at a gas station. Whether it is a choice between this ‘straight’ and therefore ‘hellish’ job or the criminal hustle she describes, she would prefer the hustle even if its repercussions will inevitably be hellish as well.
3. This could also be a hyperbole for the delusional fear that xenophobes have of immigrants taking over through the ranks of their employment, even if their job is just to pump gas and get paid to provide for themselves.
4. Already going to hell could also refer to ‘ethical’ consumption and sustainability, which is a concept that only privileged people of the higher class can afford to talk about. Even though straight gasoline is harmful to the environment, the said pumper has to worry about their needs.
The song’s bridge serves as a moment for M.I.A to assert herself through the political content that makes up a majority of her back catalogue:
M.I.A
Third world democracy
Yeah, I’ve got more records than the KGB
So, uh, no funny business
Are you ready all?
M.I.A’s political views are a significant part of her identity, as her own father was a political activist in her native Sri Lanka, which is considered by a part of Western society to be under a “third world democracy”, but was in a state of turmoil for the first 11 years of M.I.A’s early life. It can be seen as a satirization of third world governments in the sense that Western countries think that these governments are stable, when many of these political systems are anything but democratic. After all, the Sri Lankan Civil War would mark a large part of M.I.A’s childhood. Because M.I.A is a Sri Lankan Tamil, this line best describes the state of the Sinhalese government during its civil war, as well as their oppression of Tamils.
There is also an underlying irony behind many of these so-called democracies, with many South Asian countries being fitting examples. If these countries claim to be democratic, then why do they drive their own people away due to religious/ethnic cleansing, let alone their freedom of speech and their freedom to make decisions? These people inevitably flee to the West as well, only to be rejected by the West’s “democracies” for the “freedom” behind their choices.
M.I.A. also boasts that the police keep more files on her than the KGB (the secret police of the totalitarian Soviet Union) kept in total. This could also refer to the fact that she’s sold more musical records than the KGB kept. “Funny business” is also doing double-duty, implying both that you shouldn’t mess with her, and that she’s a serious businesswoman.
Finally, this plays into the previous line — “third world” countries were those unaffiliated with the “first world” (the US and its allies) or the “second world” (the USSR and its allies). This bridge can also be seen as a spoof on how many records immigration officials keep of their subjects. It emphasizes the fact that the seriousness they have towards their clientele is just as extensive as the KGB had towards their targets.
Some some some I some I murder
Some I some I let go
Some some some I some I murder
Some I some I let go
The repetitive nature of these lines is both hauntingly real and darkly funny at the same time. It satirizes the way immigrants are treated when they are detained at the border of a country, turning the decision for them to be murdered or freed into an understated act. This implies that the jobs of detainment officers aren’t as serious as they would make it out to be when these acts are just a daily routine to them. It also reflects the dark nature of these unjust treatments, knowing that the lives of many innocent immigrants have been taken at the hands of those who do not care to understand the importance of their arrival.
All the more, the chanting nature of these lines characterizes the act of detainment as frivolous in nature and not as something that is dangerous and unfair, which is something that immigrants alone have continued to fear.
In 2018, NPR called Paper Planes the greatest song by a female artist in the 21st century, describing it as “a runaway hit” that noted itself as hardly the first time Maya Arulpragasam would write a song about “the dual consciousness and dissonance of being a refugee seeking to make sense in a hostile foreign culture, but it proved to be the most salient.”
It would bring her music to the exact American audience she had critiqued. They would remain to be a central tension within M.I.A.’s career that has kept her music so vital. She understood that “colonization was the antagonist, capitalism was the vessel, and that she could subvert them both to get her point across”. Paper Planes did make M.I.A. famous, and no one could deny that aspect of it entirely. But most of all, it cemented her as “a biting analyst willing to use her pop stardom to expose the flaws in the very system of pop stardom itself — an uncomfortable outsider and iconoclast whose incongruities are as fascinating as her brilliant music.”
I don’t think anything about this song has changed since then, aside from its ever-growing audience and the unique reactions it has induced.
But it was — and still is — correct to say that its chorus will forever be immortalized in music history.
