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Hear M.I.A.’s Unreleased ‘Bad Girls’-Era Banger ‘Doobie’

M.I.A. Doobie Danja Bad Girls Stream

Though known to be in the business of living fast and dying young, even the baddest of girls no doubt on occasion feels the need to slow things down just a bit. But where, pray tell, might they look for some much needed respite? Just ask M.I.A. “I spy with my little eye / Something that can get you high,” the Tamil tigress rhymes in the opening seconds of her previously unreleased “Bad Girls”-era track, “Doobie.”

Timbaland protégé Danja (Britney Spears, Björk) produced both songs and shared the new one yesterday as part of his “Throwback Thursday” leak series. He explained that the 2012 single, whose astounding video is up for a 2013 Grammy in the Best Short Form Music Video category, as well as the B-side were recorded all the way back in 2007, and that this “weird record” was his personal favorite of the two.

The song kicks in just before the 2:40 mark and is built upon the playful yet urgent interplay of a clattering drum line (think marching band meets Krautrock crunch) and a winding 8-bit groove (Zelda, up in the club). Maya stays fairly on topic, shouting out Columbia and Jamaica while painting a picture of an endless international party scene that seems less glamorous than it does shadowy and bent.

In need of a palate cleanser? M.I.A. shared this gem via Twitter a few days ago: