If you were to first encounter the M.I.A. song “Paper Planes” as nothing more than words printed on paper, you would probably jump to the conclusion that with its refrains of “I fly like paper, get high like planes” and “All I wanna do is [gun and cash register sound effects] and take your money”, the 2008 record was another unedifying rap about drugs, violence and conspicuous consumption. Without knowledge of context and intention, texture and tone, you’d be likely to make pejorative snap judgments based on specious reasoning. And, just like that, M.I.A. would have you exactly where she wants you.
“Paper Planes” is not a paean to gangster life, but a mocking, coruscating attack on the pernicious, superficial assumptions people make about that which is unfamiliar, those who are “other”. Fuelled by the British-Sri Lankan rapper’s own experiences as a refugee and her personal indignation at being refused a working visa in the US due to her alleged — and denied — links to Tamil militia groups, M.I.A. (real name Mathangi Arulpragasam) set about skewering the febrile post-9/11 climate of xenophobic paranoia in which ethnic diversity became more or less synonymous with danger. As she put it in an interview at the time: “[they thought] that I might fly a plane into the Trade Center.”
And while the song’s title refers to counterfeit visa documents, it cannot help but also evoke the Maoist phrase “paper tiger” — broadly meaning something or someone whose perceived threat is entirely illusory. The wickedly sardonic implication here is that immigrants, feared to be terrorists, are in fact a threat to no one, or just “paper planes”.
The track’s musical reference points are similarly wide-ranging. Despite being labelled as a hip-hop record, the song is freighted with a pugnacious, punkish attitude that is driven by the extended sampling of the hook from a single by The Clash (who are credited as co-writers): 1982’s “Straight to Hell” — a track that likewise attacks nativism. The chorus of “All I wanna do”, meanwhile, appears to stem from new jack swing ensemble Wreckx-N-Effect’s concupiscent 1992 hit “Rump Shaker”. The line here is used as a winking response to M.I.A’s purported criminal intentions and is later followed by the equally arch “Some I murder/some I some I let go”.
Despite boasting such a light, acerbic touch and an irrepressibly catchy melody, it wasn’t until it was featured in the trailer for the stoner comedy Pineapple Express — and, perhaps more appositely, in an exhilarating montage sequence of Indian children grifting in the Oscars-sweeping Slumdog Millionaire — that the song exploded into the mainstream, going multi-platinum in the US and reaching the top 10 in charts across the globe.
Soon enough, all the biggest names in hip-hop were queuing up to pay homage to “Paper Planes”. 50 Cent remixed it, Rihanna and Dizzee Rascal covered it at their live shows, and a rap supergroup of Jay-Z, Kanye West, Lil Wayne and T.I. built an entire song around the sample of the line “No one on the corner had swagger like us”. A heavily pregnant M.I.A. joined the rappers in a rendition of “Swagga Like Us/Paper Planes” at the 2009 Grammys — a performance so electrifying that it was named as one of the 50 key events in the history of world and folk music by The Guardian.
Not every cover has worked quite as well. Famed guitar tickler Newton Faulkner left audience members bemused with an acoustic rendition at a gig in 2013, while a collaboration between electro group Slumberjack and rapper K.Flay failed to build on the original, despite wheeling out some string accompaniment.
Nothing however is quite as egregious as the 1940s jazz-lounge version recorded in 2015 by Postmodern Jukebox. Although vocally mellifluous, there is something unavoidably tone deaf about turning such a politically charged song into a twee gimmick in which a white singer coos lines such as “M.I.A. third world democracy/ I sold more records than the KGB”.
In one of the cover’s numerous missteps, the word “sold” replaces the more equivocal word from the original: “got” — perhaps used by M.I.A. to allude not just to music records, but the surveillance that immigrants find themselves subjected to in the US. Or perhaps not. Through its restless, playful ambiguity “Paper Planes” provides few explanations, but it does, more significantly, challenge us to consider what lies beneath the surface of things — lyrics, status, skin colour.
What are your memories of ‘Paper Planes’? Let us know in the comments section below.
‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.
Music credits: XL Recordings Ltd; CBS; G PROD; Grand Hustle, LLC | Cinq Recordings; 2017 Australian; Postmodern Jukebox
Picture credit: Skip Bolen/WireImage