M.I.A. Set to Bring Up-and-Comers to HARD Fest in NYC and L.A.

M.I.A. will return to the stage this summer with two festival dates in New York and L.A — and she's bringing along plenty up-and-coming protégés from her N.E.E.T label to support her, including hotly tipped acts Sleigh Bells and Rye Rye. The Sri Lankan MC has scheduled two dates in New York and L.A. for the HARD Festival, her first dates in support of her new album due out this summer. The L.A. date on 17th is a day-long, two-stage affair taking place at Los Angeles State Historic Park; the New York date will happen at Governors Island. Tickets, starting at $45, go on sale March 26th and are available at the fest's official site. The lineup features an impressive roster of up-and-coming hip-hop, indie-rock and electronic acts, including Theophilus London, Skream, Destructo and 12th Planet. More artists will be announced for both dates shortly.

Expect M.I.A. to unveil plenty of songs from her eagerly anticipated new record, due out this summer. "I just want to be real, whatever that is," M.I.A. told Rolling Stone about the disc in January. "Even if my songs are shit, and if I have flaws and if I'm confused, if I offend people or if I don't offend people, I might try to work it out in public, just so you know that it's OK to think, that thinking's not a dirty word."

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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