M.I.A.’s New Clip Is The Most M.I.A. Thing Imaginable

M.I.A. has just released the clip for ‘Double Bubble Trouble’, and it’s pretty much like licking the singer’s frontal lobe. Directed by M.I.A. herself, the clip manages to squeeze in all of her go-to tropes — doppelgangers, nonchalant dancing, the detritus of global culture, rad-looking kids in car parks, optically-challenging neon collages — alongside some new stuff, like 3-D-printed guns, neon flying saucers, and a guy that can blow smoke rings out of his nose and his mouth at the same damn time.

Taken from last year’s Matangi album, the song itself is a stone cold reggae strut that bursts into an agitated, galloping rhumba near the end. M.I.A. reels off a few badass schoolyard chants over the top, but then she would do that, wouldn’t she?

M.I.A. gave a brief, stylised performance of the song on Late Night With Seth Meyers last week, and presumably intended to release the clip then as well, if this minor twitter tantrum is anything to go by.

My label has my video , they havnt uploaded for 4 days > they wont let me upload > whats is the point? smh

— M.I.A (@MIAuniverse) May 19, 2014

Oh well, it’s here now, so let us rejoice. Beware, though — I’m really not kidding about the flashy neon stuff.