Lifelong visual artist M.I.A. has put on a number of striking TV performances for her superb late-2013 album Matangi. On the old Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, she showed off the album’s most pop-inclined highlight, “Come Walk With Me,” backed by the Roots. On Conan, she hypnotized with Drake-xploitation “Y.A.L.A.” And on The Colbert Report, well — she had the sheer gall to tell Stephen Colbert she doesn’t watch his show. The prospective Beyoncé remixer did it again last night on Late Night With Seth Meyers, singing the dub-inflected trap-rave threat backed by a dancer, unsmiling accomplices, drone flying saucers, and the scrawled text, “1984 IS NOW.” That reminds us, author John Crowley gave a fascinating lecture at MoMa PS1 last year arguing that George Orwell’s “1984 is not a warning, much less a prediction, but a parable.” And speaking of Queens, see our photo gallery from M.I.A.’s May 9 show with A$AP Ferg.
Watch M.I.A.’s Dystopian ‘Seth Meyers’ Dance Party
