M.I.A. is releasing her fifth and final full-length effort, AIM, next week. Following the Diplo-produced “Bird Song” and 2015’s “Borders,” we get another single from the project, “Freedun” featuring ZAYN.
The song features production from Polow da Don and is a natural crossover from pop and alt-rock — an area kind of foreign to all three artists involved.
ZAYN’s airy vocals float as M.I.A. stutters “freedun” on the chorus between her easy-going bars of supporting those who need it the most (the poor, refugees, etc.).
“It just kind of happened. I sort of made this song a long time ago and it was just always sort of like too mainstream sounding for me,” she told M.I.A. on BBC Radio 1. “It just seems like it’s perfect to have that. … If I was going to have a collaboration and have someone like ZAYN, this is sort of the perfect song,” she added. “It sort of takes me out of my comfort zone, but kind of takes him out of his as well.”
(P.S. We need to have a Polow Da Don appreciation post real soon.)
Listen to “Freedun” below.
