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Caught between the devil (Britney Spears) and Gordon Sumner, the idea that an artist can reflect their politics in music has become a largely discredited notion. When putting their minds towards defeating Thatcherism artists like Billy Bragg, Paul Weller, and the Communards produced arguably some of their worst material - they may have won your respect for actually working for change, but they didn’t necessarily make their way onto your mid-’80s turntable or proto-i-pod (walkman).

From the late ’80s onwards affiliation became the watch-word. Bono was committed to changing the world and played concerts left right and centre for organisations like Amnesty international, but after the success of Achtung Baby wouldn’t be caught dead actually singing about social issues (given some of his earlier attempts, it was no loss). Springsteen followed suit - though always slightly prone to falling off the wagon and on to his pedestal.

Springsteen is interesting, given his propensity to drop the big-band sound of the E-street band whenever he feels like getting serious. His rule of thumb being should you wish to tackle social issues head on, you need to don Woody Guthrie’s cap and stool yourself with an acoustic guitar.

Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that approach - but it ain’t gonna get you dancing, and we’re firmly with that famous Canadian anarchist Emma Goldman on this: if I can’t dance, I don’t want your revolution.

Roy Paci’s Aretuska then is the musical equivalent of the holy grail of the snack industry - a slice of genuinely tasty sugar-free chocolate. It’s political (without shouting about it, a la Skunk Anansie), social, and committed without making your feet yawn.

In Roddy Doyle’s The Committments the theory was proposed that the Irish were the blacks of Europe, and hence the proud possesors of soul. An interesting proposition, and on face-value one that stands up, certainly when comparing the music that’s come out of Dublin compared to that of either London or Berlin. But put your average Irish band - say, for argument’s sake Bell X1 - up against this Sicilian outfit, and there’s no competition. Their ska/rock sound may come from the mediterranean, but it’s roots radical and real.

And what are the politics on display? SImple really. In an increasingly anti-immigration Europe, Paci and his pals remind us that the Southern Italians (and by extension Irish, and others) just a generation or two ago were considered the illegal immigrants that powered the German post-war industrial boom. Gastarbeiter or Guest-Worker was a term used for Italians first, and then later, after the establishment of the EU, for the Turks.

A timely and rythmic way to dance out of the anti-this, anti-that doldrums.

Of course, there’s no video available for this, the best song on the outstanding Parola d’onore album, so to give you a sample we’ll take a hop, skip, and shuffle to the also splendid Todo Joia from the Suonoglobal album (featuring Manu Chao - for whom Paci played trumpet in the Radio Bemba Soundsystem)

It’s one of those ironies, that I was given a collection of Miriam Makeba’s music just last week  - that is to say, a week before the South African artist died, suffering a heart-attack after having sung at a solidarity concert for Italian author Roberto Saviano (who is living under escort, after the Neopolitan mafia issued a fatwa against him). 

News of her death pushed me to listen, with a slight sense of guilt, more attentively. There’s a host of factors at play whenever we discover new music - and guilt isn’t necessarily a bad motivation.  

And what music Makeba made.

I’m a fence-sitter (as painful as that may be, literally and metaphorically) when it comes to the dread argument about Politics in music. Like most things in life, it all depends on how it’s done. When you forget the primacy of the song, whilst evangelising, you’d be better off - and equally effective, which is to say not very - handing out Socialist Worker Party flyers on a wet and windy afternoon in any given Northern city. When you feel obliged, as M.I.A. (the artist otherwise known as Maya Arulpragasam ) has a number of times, to declare your politics over and above the structure of the song you’re singing, then you need to be judged not on aesthetic grounds but according to ideology, and precious few songwriters have ever been accused of effecting social change through their MTV delivered tracts.

But, on the other hand, I take exception to the rule that great tunes need to have a lyrical content equal-to-but-not-exceeding ‘Sugar, honey-honey, you are my candy girl, and you’ve got me wanting you’. It’s a question of starting points - and M.I.A.’s starting point on Boyz is revolutionary, first and foremost in the sounds used. Listen to the opening beats, and tell me you’ve heard something like it before, and I’ll call you a liar. THe closest touchpoint you can have for it is her previous work, on her debut album Arular’s Bucky done gun, but this is a huge leap forward. Before M.I.A. was undoubtedly interesting, now she’s indispensable.

The musical force behind the song is a mash-up of rythms and musical cultures. At the forefront is the urumi drum, a traditional drum played (usually by untouchables) in the Tamil Nadu state of India and in Sri Lanka, from where M.I.A’s family emigrated to London. Mix that in with some Trinidad ‘Soca’ style, and you have a world-beat that’s less to do with the worthy sounds of Manu Chao & co. and more to do with calypso clashing with, well, the clash.

So, on a musical level, this is in itself political - without bragging about it. It calls into question the rythmic and melodic mores that dominate the global music industry - where the only ‘third-world’ nation allowed to break out of ‘world music’ boredom is Jamaica with its reggae and dancehall cultures. In a culture where innovative sampling simply means finding a ’70s tune that had middling success first time around, and rapping over it, M.I.A.’s sampling of musical cultures is art.

The lyrics take on a stock-standard hip-hop call out and turn it on it’s head.

“HOw many boyz are crazy
How many boyz are raw
HOw many boyz are rowdy
How many start a war”

Brash, sexy, and not just a little bit sexist - but, when the oppressed turns on the oppressed and makes them dance at the same time, then, to recall Lenon’s revolution, you can count me in.

Rolling Stone nominated this #9 in their list of the 100 top songs of 2007 - an oversight, considering they had the likes of Rhianna and her vapid bubblegum Umbrella at #3 (not that it’s a bad song, when done right - check out the Biffy Clyro version that’s doing the rounds). Nobody, for this monkey, has done anything as remotely innovative or catchy as this in a long time - or political, for that matter.