MIA

http://yepyep.gibbs12.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/kool.gif

Oh Lord.

that interview is very spinal tap in the way. it just. sort of. strings. random. words. together? with. ODD. inFLECTions. in the HOPES. that. something. interESTing. willcomeout.

http://www.nme.com/news/mia/51302

She added: "Everyone on the internet is like, 'Oh my God, come and join Facebook!' They’re all so optimistic… and really, everyone is fucking you up behind the screens. And I don't like that. It makes it difficult for me to interact with my fans knowing that. Google and Facebook were developed by the CIA, and when you're on there, you have to know that."

Amazing. She really is turning into the female Bobby Gillespie.

nice gif xps

mia is clever but obv a complete fantasist

of course not all pop stars shd be like that but it helps that a few are

i find this woman annoying. the nyt piece isnt the best, its pretty obvious in how it wants to slyly show her up, but mia does talk a lot of complete shit. its so baiting. reeks of desperation to agitate and cause a fuss. she might have not had much back in hounslow, though ive a feeling it was more than she perhaps let on (the whole 'started from nothing' thing obv has a real attraction for her, prob from years of listening to hip hop), but now shes basically just a rich girl, living a pretty privileged existence, with some class guilt issues, a few dozen immature axes to grind (though this makes for good music, less good political interview quotes), and a rich white husband (funny how all her talk of 'IM FROM THERE I KNOW WHAT ITS LIKE IM REAL IM REAL IM REAL' she hasnt married someone sri lankan or FROM THE STRUGGLE.

"On several tracks, Maya even sings."

thats not new.

(this might have been commented on already)

xpost - it seems ben brofman is mixed race, though my point still stands.

the turnaround from "untouchable rock critic golden child" to "hilarious, unlikeable retard" took only six years. Good job everyone!

how long did it take you again?

(haha i don't mean that at all, but the set-up was too good)

damn stole my joke

i'm just saying, her politics were vague and her interview quotes were nonsense in 2005, when this place was a virtual m.i.a. fan club

xpost - it seems ben brofman is mixed race, though my point still stands.

So, marrying a white person would make her less "real"?

Agree, that's bollocks. You're right about the rest though, and I suspect she's actually quite posh herself.

no i said that for all her talk of embracing the struggle youd think shed move in with some dude living in the middle of port au prince or dharavi.

who gives a shit jaypeg

she does mislead americans slightly about life in the hounslow 'projects' i think but none of this stuff matters

she didn't say she'd embrace the struggle with her vagina or anything

and diplos point about paper planes being a piss take of americas gangster-love was a bit lol - she loves that shit herself, blatantly, just like a million other kids of all classes do/did in london and around the world. she talks all this stuff up as being a critique but its also a celebration (which admittedly is prob what keeps me checking for her music), a lot of the stuff she says like when she talks about being a hooker or pregnant if she didnt get into art college sounds like she WISHES those were the possible outcomes she might have been faced with. but idk, as a fellow lower mid-class person of around the same age as maya, i dont imagine it being quite that bad. hounslow ISNT a rich area, not by any stretch, i lived there for a few years, but its not a complete hellhole either, its just a bit of a dump (like lots of places where white people have largely moved out of) around london where people are largely trying/struggling to get by. but unless its changed massively since i was last there, i dont think its crime infested or riven with dealers or anything.

"she didn't say she'd embrace the struggle with her vagina or anything"

all struggles begin and end with the vagina.

now you're really projecting

that's so fucking sexist it's not even funny. "for all her talk of embracing the struggle, MIA hasn't even given herself over sexually to a freedom fighter!"

and racist too, don't forget

http://www.slippinn.co.nz/uploads/images/Logos/2%204%201%20Tuesday%20logo.jpg

oh god the vagina comment was obviously not serious.

that isn't what i'm talking about.

also classist

lamemism

http://www.1stchoicepools.co.uk/images/toys_3in1_250w.jpg

why does it have to be about 'giving herself sexually'? i didnt say she should sleep with an entire slum and make her their plaything did i?

but yes, i am a classist.

"hounslow ISNT a rich area, not by any stretch," he said, eating a truffle-flavoured french fry.

"chip"

oh youre right. it's in fact as wealthy as kensington.

jokes bruv

i was saying earlier she's overdoing hounslow's project-ness

anyway the best part of the entire piece is the bit about babies saying gaga no longer being innocent. she does make jokes after all.

That was pretty hilarious, yeah.

i love maya though i do worry she might end up as sort of a bono type figure, rising out of a massive saddam statue on tour or something.

Factcheck. She was born in Hounslow but raised (after her return from Sri Lanka) aged eight. Also not riddled with drug dealers but she did grow up on a housing estate, so let's not got too pernickerty about exactly how much poverty and violence she encountered. @titchy, I don't understand where you're going with this "was she quite poor or very poor?" line of inquiry. In relation to her current life in Beverly Hills, it's still a big leap. Kind of ridiculous to argue she should have fallen in love with someone poorer and less white as well.

i forgot about the estate thing but tbh after her overstressing the details of her past as a way to determine her cred so much in interviews i do start to kinda eyeroll a bit and get a bit suspicious...

There are def irony lols to be had at the MIA/Bronfman marriage, but they're more in regards to her saying disingenuous shit like "maybe I can afford to book Dave Chappelle at the baby shower now" after her oscar nom than her commitment to "the struggle" or whatever.

My point being, this line of attack is the same old tired bs as pointing out that Joe Strummer's dad used to be a diplomat - crying "fake" and "hypocrite" because someone isn't poor enough. She says enough stupid shit that this is really the least interesting and substantial criticism you could make.

Re: her Google/Facebook daftness, I just finished reading David Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories, which got me thinking about why so many politicised pop stars shoot themselves in the foot by swallowing conspiracy theories wholesale. I wonder if there's a psychological overlap between the semi-justified paranoia of fame (yes, people really ARE looking at you and recording what you say) and tin-hat craziness about the CIA trying to get you. When you read old Public Enemy interviews, it's immensely dispiriting to see Chuck shift from a real grievance to conspiracy-theorist claptrap. There's enough genuine malfeasance out there - you don't need to start making shit up.

xpost. I think part of the problem is generational. She's trying to mix old-fashioned PE/Clash underdog rhetoric with post-gangsta-rap, "fuck you, I'm rich now" triumphalism, so you get this weird dissonance when it comes to money. If she were a little bit more articulate about examining this contradiction then she could avoid all these truffle-fry gotchas.

She isn't a revolutionary using art to achieve a political goal, she's an artist using revolutionary rhetoric to achieve an artistic goal. I don't know why the press all fell all over themselves to treat her like an actual terrorist* but it's kind of clear from reading her interviews and listening to her music that she is much more about turning tragedy into fashion than she is about educating people on the nuances of foreign policy. At most, I think her main political goal is to get people to recognize that third-world issues are important rather than to encourage people to take a specific side (obv she has her stance on the Tamils but she talks about more than just Sri Lanka) but that is way less important to her than making dance music. It's basically the world's most unnecessary takedown, like someone doing an incisive hatchet job on Kanye West's ego.

Obviously being unnecessary doesn't stop it from being funny.

* well actually I do ("don't let the brown skin fool you") but let's not get into that

hope it was worth it for lynn hirschberg to finally have her "buy them fries, write about them eating fries" bit outed.

Developing world bling is very much a THING with young post-Colonial Britishes with family ties to Africa, South Asia and Turkey - some of my friends from these backgrounds (many of whom work in fashion or graphics) don't like MIA because they are also from politically interesting refugee families and think she could be a bit more rigorous. One Turkish friend just thinks she'd make a much better pop star than Maya.

Posting that recording was so petty but it made lol. "They do lots of different fries here. The truffle ones are the fanciest. Btw, get what you want, the NYT's paying." *winks, sits back, waits* "Ooh, look at you, Miss Fancy Pants."

xpost im not saying she has to come up with papers outlining the state benefits her family got as a kid or anything, shes just a bit try hard, though hey, i do like that she is trying to bring politics, even superficially learnt/poseury ones, into pop music.

"she is much more about turning tragedy into fashion than she is about educating people on the nuances of foreign policy"

her thing is her fabulous life story first and foremost, though even that is a very familar hip hop trajectory, its just articulated better, and comes with massive dollops of confused terrorist/outlaw/politico etc posturing

what is 'world bling'?

when do you stop complaining about people being "just a bit try hard" when they're actually incredibly successful at what they do

hi dere OTM