MIA

yeah, much as i'd like to defend outrageous quasi-political statements for their own (rare) sake in contemporary pop, there's a point at which saying stupid shit is just, you know, fucking stupid

If the Clash or Dylan or Bob bloody Marley had suffered such intense scrutiny they would all have failed the examination

if ONLY those acts had suffered some scrutiny rather than rock writers buying into their stupid myths!

as jordan said upthread, i really resent the argument that the idea of a pop star is to be an idiot.

My problem with the "scrutiny" being applied here is that, with the exception of the Tamil/Sri Lanka-specific stuff, it's the same kind of "scrutiny" that people on the right apply to middle-class socialists.

i mean, the reason this is much-needed isn't because pop stars' thoughts should all be combed over for incoherence, because where would we stop - it's 100% to do with a) how m.i.a. presents herself, b) the extent to which the majority of the media has totally bought into this. sure, us music nerds have been discussing her politics for years and have mostly concluded that she speaks bullshit, but the mainstream media has barely questioned her credentials as a "revolutionary" "political" "activist" who should be taken seriously on those grounds, and that's just plain wrong. i seriously can't believe how much that stupid "born free" video was reported as though it was an actual political statement. i'm really glad she got punctured in this way, and if it takes mocking her olive bread to do it, i'm all for that.

(also harping on about mia's politics obscures discussion of her actual artistic strengths, which are actually more interesting than her stupid sloganeering.)

what does that have to do with anything? if you take advantage of celebrity's public platform to issue political proclamations, they will and should be scrutinized. i agree that maya attracts more than her fair share of criticism on such grounds, but i can't say she doesn't invite it...

i also don't want to read too much into this, but i do think it's somewhat interesting that mia seems to be drawn to old-money privilege in her personal relationships, from justine frischmann at st martin's to her husband now.

my last post was directed to the x (matt dc, not the lex). and i'm not sure i buy lex's idea that the mainstream pop media have given mia a free pass on her political seriousness and relevance. the impression i've gathered is that most writers/critics have always considered her stated politics a dubious kind of set dressing, mainstream or not.

i dont understand how she is so rich tho

My problem with the "scrutiny" being applied here is that, with the exception of the Tamil/Sri Lanka-specific stuff, it's the same kind of "scrutiny" that people on the right apply to middle-class socialists.

So OTM. "If you care about the poor so much why don't you give away all your possessions and live in a skip?"

Lex, you're deliberately misreading her. By "there" she clearly means the region she's talking about, ie Sri Lanka, not Africa. MIA might talk shit sometimes but I'm sure she realises Sri Lanka isn't in Africa. And, as contenderizer says, you're seriously overstating the free ride she's gotten from the press. In virtually every piece I've read there's been a degree of critique and questioning, without anyone having to resort to the truffle-fry manouevre.

The old money thing is interesting, but isn't that a classic hip hop trope? Like Jay-Z with his Bentleys and wanting to stay at the Dorchester.

dorian, did you just quote steven wells to make the argument that journalists should be more deferential to their interview subjects?!?!1?

He was pretty deferential to musicians with lefty viewpoints, even when interviewing Belle and Sebastian he was like "why aren't you more political? You're obviously more intelligent than 99% of other pop stars".

I don't really get what scrutinising Dylan to see whether he'd thought through the economic consequences of The Times They Are A Changin' would get you. The specific issue with MIA is that she is pretty much the most prominent person from Sri Lanka anywhere in the world and therefore runs a much higher risk of doing serious damage when she shoots her mouth off.

iirc people *did* scrutinize dylan, *after* he stopped making protest records, and he gave rly oblique answers in response... happens in 'walk hard' anyway.

Ha, no not deferential at all, but not picky and snide. I've been reading some old Wells interviews with politicised musicians and he gives them every chance to explain themselves and actually seems disappointed if they let him down. He seems entirely uninterested in what they're eating. The difference being that he was broadly in favour of politics in pop music and forgiving of contradiction.

Same with Dylan interviews. He was scrutinised with a degree of good faith. Hirschberg's more in the vein of the NY Times woman who quarrelled with Lennon in Montreal, as seen in the (sadly not very good) US vs John Lennon doc.

ok do you guys like remember when m.i.a. was breaking? the whole tamil tiger/third world revolutionary stuff was a HUGE part of her identity in the press (fueled no doubt by half a million press releases, interviews, etc.--in other words steered by m.i.a. and her team). and it was a big part of why, compared to other stars who had a few minor shits, she got a shitload of Serious Attention. and that serious attention did eventually translate into a higher commercial profile. so given that m.i.a. has exploited these connections/resonances willingly (and i don't use the word 'exploited' as a pejorative here) yeah i think it's worthwhile to point out hypocrisy and ignorance. why not? pop stars shouldn't be held to the same standards of political sophistication and coherence as, i dunno, michelle bachmann or something (ha), but i don't see why we should just smile and look the other way. we wouldn't necessarily do the same of a writer, a coworker, a neighbor, a classmate, etc.

but yeah this article was more cheap shots and give-em-enough rope than actual critique. wish it were better.

haha "minor shits" i mean "minor hits"

^^ there was this whole thing that she was a refugee and her dad was a terrorist/freedom fighter/_______, and that therefore she spoke for the global south &c. and obviously she does more than, like, laura marling. but her dad's identity was a big part of her public image as amateurist says. so the truth does kinda matter there.

xp

i only read the bloggable bits of the article but it seemed pretty decent really

“I wasn’t trying to be like Bono,” Maya told me. “He’s not from Africa — I’m from there. I’m tired of pop stars who say, ‘Give peace a chance.’ I’d rather say, ‘Give war a chance.’"

maya. you are not from africa!!!!! in any sense!!! wtf.

i think she means "bono is not from the places he talks about, while i am" (meaning: i am from sri lanka, which i talk about). still a bunch of bullshit, but i doubt she is claiming to be from africa.

I don't care. Misguided or not I miss politics in music.

There's always politics in music.

^^otm. shouting slogans doesn't necessarily mean you have anything politically meaningful to say. and not doing explicitly political material doesn't mean you don't have something politically meaningful to say. the personal is political, right.

but yeah this article was more cheap shots and give-em-enough rope than actual critique. wish it were better.

Exactly.

@historymayne, what truth are you talking about re: MIA's dad? The truth about him or the truth about the political situation? Because it stands to reason that MIA is likely to have a rather partial take on Sri Lankan politics and can be forgiven for not seeing the other side's POV to the extent that you or I might. You may be referring to something specific here, so I may be missing your point.

Whatever the truth is, Maya has gone from trumpeting her father’s revolutionary past in order to claim that lineage to playing down his politics to support a separate narrative. “He was with the Sri Lankan government,” she now maintained, when I saw her in Los Angeles. “He’s been with them for 20 years. They just made up the fact that he is a Tiger so they can talk crap about me.”

this is bullshit: she totally played up her dad's cool tamil tiger image

idk man, if you had an northern irish singer saying 'give war a chance' i doubt they'd get a free ride. but sri lanka is a long way away so probably simpler, right?

i do think it's somewhat interesting that mia seems to be drawn to old-money privilege in her personal relationships, from justine frischmann at st martin's to her husband now.

she's drawn to old-world privilege in her music, too. to the extent that there's some meta-narrative in her songs, it's about not having old-world privilege and finding ways to scrape/scam/steal a chunk of it. which is why hirschberg's article would be more interesting if hirschberg understood the music better -- the truffle fries and olive bread aren't damning details the way she thinks they are, because she's not engaged with the actual songs in anything beyond some really superficial "aha, left-wing pop star hypocrite!" way.

(i think the article's very entertaining, btw. i just think that what hirschberg thinks are gotchas aren't really gotchas at all. they're more like well-duhs.)

justine frischmann had money, but 'old money privilege'? um no.

"idk man, if you had an northern irish singer saying 'give war a chance' i doubt they'd get a free ride."

Obviously definitions of free rides vary here, cuz I don't quite see it.

This made me go back to a transcript of an interview I did in 2005 just as Arular came out, and even then she was at pains to point out that her dad was a Tamil revolutionary but not a Tiger (no mention of working for the govt). She knew about all the competing groups and why the Tigers came to lead the movement. She spoke a lot about the suffering of ordinary Tamils and didn't glorify the Tigers at all. She was much more into nuance than slogans. She seems to be getting more belligerent and simplistic as she gets older, which is a shame.

Or maybe the UNEDITED ARTICLE will reveal a different MIA!

Schooling Lynn over a truffle fry!

Wow you guys

You know that MIA's reaction to this article is more of a takedown than the article itself, right? Why are we even arguing over this? (lol "we")

tipsy's really onto something here. Hirschberg's gotchas depend on falsely equating MIA's third world concerns with hairshirt liberalism whereas plainly, a la Paper Planes, she's bringing aspirational hip hop swagger to the issue. It's pretty obvious from her records that she wants money (because, unlike the strawman middle-class socialist, she grew up with fuck all) so why not spend it on fancy fries?

Also a 2005 Northern Irish singer who said "give war a chance" would be more successful in the US than MIA has been, especially if she was as physically attractive as MIA.

What about an Irish singer who tore up a pic of the Pope? What would happen to her?

The "unedited article" is gonna be a bunch of stick-figure drawings.

x-post-ish Is it not fair to point out that Bono grew up in Ireland at the peak of the Troubles? He may be old and rich, but I bet he remembers a firsthand thing or two that MIA has only learned later in life, second-hand.

The unedited article is going to be a video of MIA pantsing Hirschberg at a Laker game.

"but I bet he remembers a firsthand thing or two that MIA has only learned later in life, second-hand"

Uh wait she did live in Sri Lanka until she was 8, right?

MIA apparently the only person in the entire world who can't get away with intimating that Bono is a pompous cock.

What about an Irish singer who tore up a pic of the Pope? What would happen to her?

In 2005? Or in the 90s? Context shapes impact.

x-post-ish Is it not fair to point out that Bono grew up in Ireland at the peak of the Troubles? He may be old and rich, but I bet he remembers a firsthand thing or two that MIA has only learned later in life, second-hand.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, May 28, 2010 1:17 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

he grew up in dublin so...

Dublin, Belfast, same diff. They're all Ireland, right?

x-post-ish Is it not fair to point out that Bono grew up in Ireland at the peak of the Troubles? He may be old and rich, but I bet he remembers a firsthand thing or two that MIA has only learned later in life, second-hand.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, May 28, 2010 12:17 PM (4 minutes ago)

Bono grew up in Dublin and the troubles were confined to the north in a way that ppl dont really get outside of Ireland it seems

in ireland, they call them chips

also true

She seems to be getting more belligerent and simplistic as she gets older, which is a shame.

learned what side the olive bread is buttered on imo

Bono grew up in Dublin and the troubles were confined to the north in a way that ppl dont really get outside of Ireland it seems

― plax (ico), Friday, May 28, 2010 8:37 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Ireland seems much smaller than it is for some reason. I would have pegged it as being as big as Vermont maybe, but it's really more like Indiana-sized.

why is it that every time i see a news story involving MIA, it reconfirms the sense that she is an unhinged, mentally unstable narcissist?

xp well its weird that it is only a couple of hours by car to belfast but that the troubles really were a northern irish thing that didn't cross the border in a way that ppl really thought that much about

xp no idea? Something about you maybe?

anyway, for everyone who is like, "an MIA song may not be an article in the atlantic but *at least she's making an effort*" and representing the tamil cause or whatever, i say bullshit. last year the sri lankan govt literally killed the fuck out of 1000s of civilians being kept 'for their own protection' in camps. and MIA's response is to basically comport herself like (word to passantino) a spastic youtube commenter/twittard, and then do a nathan barley-esque "edgy" video about killing redheads. really helping. really raising ppls' consciousness. s0 much better than apolitical pop stars like madonna/lady gaga/__________