M.I.A. shares Zayn Malik collaboration, ‘Freedun’

M.I.A.releases new album ‘A.I.M’ on 9th September, and she’s just shared the record’s big collaboration - a track with former One Direction member Zayn Malik.

Zayn, who released gloomy solo album ‘Mind of Mine’ back in March, appears on ‘Freedun’. The track debuted as a Hottest Record on Annie Mac’s Radio 1 show, and it finds M.I.A. brazenly referencing “history”, “politics”, and “ambition” in the same verse. Zayn’s guest spot is a mist-covered chorus, recorded after ‘A.I.M.’ was initially finished. The song also contains a beyond questionable lyric: “I rape that button just to play this song,” a popular phrase / go-to YouTube comment that you’d hope, in 2016, would be extinct by this point. Ffs etc.

Listen to ‘Freedun’, plus an interview with Annie Mac, below. “This is a floaty song,” she says. “I had to put my aggressive brain to bed.” The Zayn collaboration “just kinda happened - he’s from Bradford, I always thought that was pretty cool.”