M.I.A. has shared a new track, “CTRL”, which – in a message posted to Twitter Wednesday evening (September 9) – she describes as a “song for 2020”.
“This is not a song from M.I.A.’s upcoming highly anticipated IIIIIIth LP,” the statement adds, suggesting that more new music could be on the way. “It was made for the here and now. Today.”
Available to listen to via M.I.A.’s OHMNI website, “CTRL” follows her first new song in three years, “OHMNI 202091”, which released in March this year. M.I.A.’s last album was 2016’s AIM, though she has debuted a couple of other tracks since then, such as “P.O.W.A.” and the 2004 track “Reload”.
The statement about “CTRL” also comes with a message supporting the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, reading: “In opposition to the ongoing extradition of the journalist Julian Assange. The significance of this moment and this case is like nothing we have seen in modern jurisdiction.”
This week, Assange has appeared in a London court as part of his ongoing legal battle against extradition to the US, where he faces a maximum prison sentence of 175 years, charged with conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network in 2010.
M.I.A. previously backed Assange when she played outside the Home Office in protest against his possible extradition to the US in 2019. Read her statement about “CTRL” below.