Last month, M.I.A revealed that her long-awaited album, AIM, would feature a collaboration with Zayn Malik. The track, titled “Freedun”, had apparently been made remotely, with the Sri Lankan rapper writing the song with Malik over WhatsApp. “We have the same publishers and they wanted me to demo some songs for Zayn,” she explained at the time. “Before I started writing properly my own stuff, I was thinking maybe I’ll write for other people instead. I really wanted to write a song for Zayn.”

Now, three weeks later, that song has surfaced. M.I.A premiered the “floaty” new collaboration during an appearance on Annie Mac’s Radio 1 show on Thursday (September 1). She also shared more about how the track came about, as well as the inspirations behind the upcoming AIM, in an accompanying interview. 

“I sort of made the song a long time ago and it was just always too mainstream sounding for me,” the artist explained. She added that, because of his popularity, Zayn was the “perfect” person to work with on the track. “It just kind of happened. He's from Bradford and I always thought that’s pretty cool.”

Listen to the track and interview in full below: