MIA has claimed that the release of her new album was delayed by her US record label for being “too positive”.

The singer, who last year released the single “Bad Girls”, was due to release her fourth album Matangi in late 2012. However, speaking to Australian newspaper Gold Coast Bulletin, she revealed that Interscope were not quite convinced by her work and were hoping for something a little different. “It’s due in April, which is the Tamil new year – April 15th – and I’m still working on it,” she said.

Stating that she had been told to “darken it up a bit”, MIA went on to discuss exactly what the label had said to her, stating: “I thought I’d finished it. I finished it and then I handed the record in, like a couple of months ago. It’s like ‘We just built you up as the public enemy No. 1 and now you’re coming out with all this positive stuff.”

Speaking last year at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the singer and rapper explained that the title of her next album refers to her own birth name, Mathangi, and also a Hindu wisdom goddess.

MIA told the audience that she was about to go to India “to add more stuff” to the album and added of the record: “It’s not ‘I want to be trendy’. I just want to make music that makes sense.”

Earlier in the same year MIA described her next album as sounding like Paul Simon “on acid”. The singer made the comment on Twitter, after telling fans she would answer questions about the follow-up to 2010’s Maya.

When asked how many tracks would feature on the new album, she said: “It’s still in the making – could be five it could be 15 depends on what sounds good in my bro’s car.” She added that there would be no collaborations on the record.