M.I.A.

[KasiaPL]

Madonna performs live at Super Bowl XLVI with Nicki Minaj, MIA, LMFAO and CEE LO GREEN!

 

[KasiaPL]

M.I.A. performs during the Bridgestone Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show at Lucas Oil Stadium on February 5, 2012 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

wireimage

 

[KasiaPL]

HQ's


ipapress

 

[*ana*]

February 6, 2012
M.I.A. SHOULDN’T HAVE APOLOGIZED
Posted by Sasha Frere-Jones

The most important artist of the aughts played the Super Bowl last night. Maybe you saw it. In the middle of Madonna’s set, Maya Arulpragasam—professionally known as M.I.A.—performed her part in the new Madonna song, “Give Me All You Luvin’.” In the original video, she ends her kind of meh verse by saying “I’ma say this once—yeah, I don’t give a sh*t.” Also in the video, she makes the “finger gun” hand signal, synced to a gunshot that references her biggest hit, “Paper Planes.” Last night, she flipped America the bird, rather than a gun. Cue apologies and hand wringing.

As reported by Todd Martens and Patrick Kevin Day on the Los Angeles Times Web site, the NFL, NBC, and M.I.A. have all apologized. Tim Winter of the Parents Television Council, whose job is to get mad, got mad about this “offensive material.” So we have two subjects: the incident and the artist.

The outrage is tiresome and deeply hypocritical, in all the tiresome ways you’ve been tired out by before. M.I.A. was illustrating her line, acting out the attitude of the words: performing. Fine, it may not be legal to flip the bird on television, but that’s simply a remnant of the fifties we haven’t shaken. Unless somebody was handing out Xanax with the foam fingers, Lucas Oil Stadium was ringing with the music of profanities last night. More to the point, television viewers were submitted to ad after ad that likened women—negatively—to sofas, cars, and candy. Mr. Winter didn’t have anything to say about that, so I’d like to raise both of my middle fingers to him and anyone who thinks profanity is somehow more harmful to our children than images of violence and misogyny. (My two sons, fourteen and eleven, thought the Fiat ad was corny, so I guess they will be safe without Mr. Winter’s intervention.) I say we get out of The Pretending To Be Moral game altogether and use the Internet for important things like posting pictures of cats looking at croissants and PDFs of sensitive government documents.

The artist, of course, is M.I.A. About seven years ago, I praised her for several things, including turning the noxious generalization of “world music” into an idea that represents life as it is lived, and affords huge aesthetic possibilities. She made two albums that received all the praise they deserved, and then a third album called “/\/\/\Y/\,” which received a deeply weird and negative review in Pitchfork (unless you think M.I.A. is here only to provide “bangers” and hasn’t already vaulted way past her “potential as a pop artist” many times) and, most damagingly, the worst profile ever written about a musician, in the New York Times Magazine. (The trend of letting people who know nothing about music profile musicians is as outdated as fretting about cursing. Quite rightly, nobody would ever let me profile an Al Qaeda member; somehow, though, pop music is such a culturally light topic that no background is needed to cover it.)

Maya provokes, over and over, and if some of the provocations don’t entirely work, that hardly invalidates the ones that do. Her new single, “Bad Girls,” isn’t up to much, but director Roman Gavrais makes it an uncanny combination of club swagger and rebel time-wasting in this video, a bit like a Syrian version of “Two-Lane Blacktop.” On the other side of the scale, Gavrais and M.I.A. teamed up for the “Born Free” video, which was banned by YouTube (your go-to source for family-friendly material). Unless you’re living somewhere very unusual, the sight of white people being rounded up and shot is genuinely unsettling and not trivial, not when the U.S. is expanding its ability to detain people indefinitely and innocent people have been detained and tortured at Guantánamo Bay. Remind me why we’re talking about a middle finger again? I’m just sorry Maya apologized.

newyorker.com

 

[MulletProof]

I don't even know specifically what happened but the fact that a middle finger is involved just makes me not want to find out, sounds pretty childish. The Super Bowl, Madonna, her song with Madonna (or is it the other way around? ) just bores me to tears..


Let's talk about Bad Girls . I emailed the video to a couple of people and they say they can't stop watching.

 

[*ana*]

I saw a few scenes (the beginning of "Vogue" and "Music"), and it sounded like playback, so I lost the minimum interest I still had (Spears is the only one who can get away with it in my book.)

Everyone I show "Bad Girls" likes it, too. The rhythm is just so good - which is what I love about "Bucky Done Gun" (still my fave song and video), she based it on a silly Brazilian funk song with terrible lyrics and made something good. What I like about M.I.A is the rhythms and the way she sings, more than anything else.

 

[mademoiselle_]

She's the bestest, period... I'm little dissapointed though that I would never imagine her collaborating with Madonna (of wich I'm HUGE fan of, top of my list) and once they do the song is TERRIBLE!!

About Bad Girls it's not her best song and lyrics are a little bit cliché like "live fast die young" but still I'm obsessed with the song and the video is MAGNIFICENT!

And about the SB what a great move M.I.A thumbs up for you!! the dumbest way of getting free publicity before her cd comes out! and making more buzz than Madonna LOVE HER

 

[yesitsdagny]

Bad Girls is too addicting. I listened to it all day long today

 

[Scott]

now apparently madge has blasted MIA for doing it. that's rich coming from the same woman who made all sorts of gestures and put on raunchy performances on national television. give us a break madonna.

maybe MIA just thought she was being silly given the horrendous nature of that song.

 

[LuLover]

seriously. madonna has tried everything to try and shock people in her time, i can't stand her. she has aged to disgracefully, botox and bad bad music

 

[mistress_f]

now apparently madge has blasted MIA for doing it. that's rich coming from the same woman who made all sorts of gestures and put on raunchy performances on national television. give us a break madonna.

don't you know that madonna is now a respectable british lady? she won't stand any vulgarity. especially when dressed as a roman centurion with a diamond-studded golden crown on her head

 

[KasiaPL]

Stella McCartney and M.I.A. attend the 'Schiaparelli And Prada: Impossible Conversations' Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2012 in New York City.

isifa

 

[KasiaPL]

Martini Art Love Party

bonafide-hustler.net

 

[KasiaPL]

Versace: Arrivals - Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture F/W 2012/13

koktajl.fakt.pl

 

[KasiaPL]

M.I.A. - Big Chill festival near Ledbury in Herefordshire/England (UK), 08/07/2010


hqparadise

 

[KasiaPL]

Montreux Jazz Festival

stills.ch

 

[KasiaPL]

M.I.A., aka Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam, and her fiance Benjamin Brewer, take a shopping trip in SoHo in New York City.


zimbio

 

[Gincat]

Those are from like two years ago, right? She and Brewer are no longer together.

 

[angelfish]

Ben Bronfman was her husband but that's not him in those pictures.

 

[vickileekx]

Attending Kenzo S/S 2013 Paris (seen w/ designers Umberto Leon and Carol Lim)



credit: vibevixen.com