Paper Planes (M.I.A. song)

"Paper Planes"
Song

"Paper Planes" is the third single from artist M.I.A.'s second album Kala. It is written by Maya Arulpragasam and Diplo. It samples the song "Straight to Hell" by The Clash. It is notable for its chorus, which features gunshots and cash register sounds. Maya explains the gun sounds as a joke, an answer to having problems obtaining her visa when trying to enter the U.S. She thought that the worst thing for someone to say would be, "What I wanna do is come and take your money", and hence said it in the song with sound effects. She went on to state that "people don’t really feel like immigrants or refugees contribute to culture in any way. That they’re just leeches that suck from whatever".

A remix of the song featuring tour mates RyeRye and Afrikan Boy was uploaded to M.I.A.'s MySpace and is currently being promoted alongside the single.

M.I.A. worked on the song with Diplo in London.

Music video

File:MIA PaperPlanesVid.jpg

M.I.A. in the Paper Planes music video

A music video for the song was directed by Bernard Gourley, director of 50 Cent's "Follow My Lead" video. It had a planned premiere on TRL on December 17, 2007, however was made available on MTV's website on December 15, two days before it's airing on TRL.

This video is shot in New York City, however it was originally planned to be shot in a factory on the border of Ecuador, but was not due to time constraints of M.I.A. touring the USA.

In the video, M.I.A. stars as an immigrant who sells bread on a van to several other New Yorkers. At the sound of the gunshots, they are quick shots of street signs, people, and restaurant signs. We see M.I.A. seems to be living in a tiny New York City apartment, "visible as she walks down the steps into a cramped location. Later in the video, we see M.I.A. shopping at a local bodega. There are also shots of M.I.A. and a group of her friends walking down a New York street. DMX as well as Mike D and Adrock of the Beastie Boys make cameo appearances in the video.

Controversy

M.I.A. performed a censored version of the song on Late Night with David Letterman on September 21, 2007. The song's gunshots were replaced with ambiguous "popping" sounds, which left her visibly shocked during the performance.

The version released by MTV in December and the version uploaded by M.I.A. herself on her YouTube account differ greatly. While the video remains the same, in the MTV version M.I.A.'s vocals are doubled, the gun sounds replaced with ambiguous popping sounds, the gun loading sound replaced with a cash register sound and the word "weed" taken out of one of the verses. Following general fan disapproval of the leaked MTV version of the video, M.I.A. mentioned in a MySpace blog entry on December 16, 2007 that MTV's decision to change the sound disappointed and angered her; she felt that the video she had recorded for the song was already much more safe and mainstream than her regular videos. She said "To the bloggers who are lazy enough to follow the MTV link and post up and comment on the sound when that hasn't been compromised...makes me sad...the song is what I wanted to preserve in this case." She went on to reference the Letterman performance in the blog, stating that what she had originally heard and agreed to in a sound check to replace the gunshot sounds in the song was completely different to what was actually played on the night.