M.I.A Is Turning Into A Hypocrite

To barstardise a quote from Oscar Wilde: “Pop stars reign for four years, and journalism governs forever and ever.”  Such is the natural order of things, and so will it always be regardless of the recent Twitter led tantrums of Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam.

If you’re not up to speed on the controversy, here’s a brief outline of the M.I.A. - Lynn Hirschberg ‘beef’ to date. On May 25 the New York Times published a Hirschberg penned portrait of everyone’s favourite Sri Lankan born superstar. The piece was pretty critical of said hip-hop virtuoso pointing out the ill advised nature of her political pronouncements of past and unflatteringly contrasting the privileged lifestyle Maya currently leads to the ‘ousider’ she posits herself as. M.I.A. was none too pleased about such a unfavourable piece and promptly posted Hirschberg’s phone number on Twitter account before uploading her own edited clips of interview conversation to her N.E.E.T. Records’ website alongside a new track tagged ‘Haters’.

So far, so very melodramatic. Rather than bogging proceedings down in the specifics of Sri Lankan politics though, what seems important to draw from the now farcically hostile game of ‘Claim A Mis-Quote’ is the extreme hypocrisy of M.I.A.’s new found anti-press agenda.

If journalists are “thick as shit” as Maya claims on ‘Haters’, then up until last Tuesday she seemed quite happy to cater to the same collective’s base needs by supplying great copy in every interview. To list a few from recent articles: “Google’s more powerful than any government now” in the NME; “I like to be very close to the C.I.A., F.B.I. and Sri Lankan government” in the New York Times; and you know life is truly in the pits when, “By the time you've got to doing your house, insurance, your car, and paid a bill for your baby, it's just too hard for you to have any fun [in LA], you know?”

Of course, M.I.A. is by no means the first musician to cash in on the value of sensationalising every statement each time a dictaphone is shoved in front of their eager chops. Liam “I am the salmon king” Gallagher has seemingly mastered this art to the extent that few question the inherent ridiculousness of his self-promoting tosh. So when a journalist does have the temerity to challenge an artist’s stream of shameless media manipulation, it’s disheartening that the de facto response from M.I.A. has been to take the easy route away from self-reflection.

Clearly the world would be a duller place without an entertaining sound bite once every while from Lady Gaga. But for the larger part, surely it would be better to encourage intelligent answers to intelligent questions? If we encourage controversy for controversies sake, then the end result is much the same as Maya’s own ‘Born Free’ video. A product cynically constructed for a shock value that is meaningless at best, harmful at worst.