
MAYA Arulpragasam, known as M.I.A., has never been shy about her politics and when she sat down with New York Times’ writer Lynn Hirschberg it seemed like another interview. Outspoken, confident, eloquent and one of the music industry’s most thought-provoking artists, M.I.A is always controversial.
Along with a brilliant new viral video (which wasinstantly banned from YouTube, MTV and MuchMusic), she has a new son whom she gave birth to after performing nine months’ pregnant at the Grammy Awards. Maya was also engaged to Ben Bronfman, son of the Warner Music Group chief executive and Seagram’s heir Edgar Bronfman Jr., and she was working on highly anticipated new tracks with some of the hottest producers on the planet.
Right from the outset, it seemed as if Hirschberg was challenging the performer on the conflict between being someone whose music is so heavily political and who is now living a lifestyle that most people only dream out. While those topics are certainly important to discuss, Hirschberg’s piece had the tone of someone who was setting out to do hatchet job.
Yes, Maya’s music is political. Yes, she now lives in Beverly Hills. Yes, she has modelled clothes for high-end designers and cares about fashion. Yes, she might like to eat truffle-flavoured french fries and yes, she still writes about the power of the people, but she isn’t a 20-something drunk pop star, partying the night away while singing about the injustices in the world. She has been the same person from Day 1: one foot in politics, one foot in popular culture.
“Maya had all the pieces of the puzzle,” said Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Interscope Records. “When I met her, I thought, ‘Who wouldn’t want to sign her?’ Her politics didn’t matter to me. The whole game is about waiting for that moment to move popular culture. Maya can move the needle. I want to go where she’s going to take me.”
Almost immediately after the piece ran, the firestorm began. Maya wasn’t impressed with how she was depicted in the lengthy, almost 9,000-word piece and posted Hirschberg’s personal phone number on her Twitter profile. She also got to work on a diss track, Haters, that she released for free on her website.
The New York Times has added an editor’s note that elements of the author’s interview were spliced together at different parts.
This isn’t the first time an artist has attacked the writer; she is best known for the notorious Courtney Love Vanity Fair interview that got Hirschberg death threats from Love’s then-husband, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain.
FOR many people, bookmarks stored on a single machine are becoming the old way of doing things. Although there are other online options like iGoogle and Delicious.com, that doesn’t mean there aren’t newcomers like Symbaloo hoping to get your attention.
Recently out of beta testing, Symbaloo is a personal online tool that will help you organize your online life, no matter what computer or device you may be using. One of its most innovative features is you can share your personal web mix with anyone you want and integrate what other people send you into your front-page look. Already 20,000 customizable combinations have been made available.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 30, 2010 E3