M.I.A.’s long-awaited fourth album, Matangi, will be coming out this spring, the singer revealed in an interview with Australia’s Gold Coast Bulletin.
“It’s due in April, which is the Tamil new year – April 15th – and I’m still working on it,” she said.
According to the M.I.A., her record company delayed the album’s release because they found the sound “too positive.” “I thought I’d finished it. I finished it and then I handed the record in, like a couple of months ago,” she said, noting that she was told to “darken it up a bit.” “It’s like ‘We just built you up as the public enemy No. 1 and now you’re coming out with all this positive stuff.'” M.I.A. said that she was not necessarily complying with the advice. “I’m taking my time to decide what they mean.”
With a title that refers to her birth name, Mathangi, as well as a Hindu goddess of wisdom, M.I.A.’s follow-up to her 2010 hit Maya marks her first album with Interscope. “My manager who I fired is now the head of Interscope so that’s also an interesting thing for me – revisiting people in different hats,” she said. [RollingStone]