Photo Gallery: MIA
MIA has been helping the inmates of a Sydney juvenile detention centre learn to make music.
The two-day workshop was part of the Heaps Decent program, which aims to support indigenous and disadvantaged Australian youths to break into music.
MIA told NME.COM: "[I was] asked if I’d go there to meet these teenagers in an all-girls juvenile detention centre and help them to make music... teach them. There were around 15 girls, aged from 13 to 20. All the girls just wanted to gangster-rap, but we had to make a censored version and an uncensored version, 'cos they just wanted to be like, 'Fuck the police'.
"I was like, you can’t make ‘Fuck The Police’, 'cos it’s been made like 20 years ago, so come up with a new way of saying it."
NME.COM heard a snippet of the sparse, fierce track.
"It was them beat-boxing and making noise," she explained after the listen. "We used the doors shutting in the prison; all the random noises they made to make the beat, and then we made sure that all the girls got a go rapping on it and stuff, and they just did their thing. It was really cool."
The track was produced by French producers Tepr and Grand Marnier, and will be mixed by Switch, before a full Australian release. French rapper Yelle also features.
For more information on Heaps Decent go to Heapsdecent.com.
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