Remember when M.I.A. announced she wrote a song with Zayn Malik over WhatsApp? Well, that track has dropped, and oh-boy is it catchy. Titled “Freedun,” the banger combines Malik’s boy-band smoothness with M.I.A.’s trademark lyrical prowess, resulting in what was always going to be an unexpected but perfectly executed mashup of genres.
M.I.A. premiered the track on BBC Radio 1 yesterday, making it the latest tune off her highly anticipated album A.I.M to be drip-fed to us. She revealed the track has been in the works for a while, but that it always felt “too mainstream” to her.
The rapper also shed some light on what it was like working with Malik, explaining that recording “Freedun” took them both out of their comfort zones, but that everything just worked out. “If I was going to have a collaboration with someone like Zayn, this was going to be the perfect song,” she told BBC’s Annie Mac.
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Text Amy Campbell
Image via @miamatangi