Here’s a recent article in Papermag.com about M.I.A.’s apparent disdain for the music industry and what it does to a person.
Excerpt:
Sometimes M.I.A. just doesn’t feel like it anymore. A fall tour through Australia found the underground agitator wondering whether making music was still right for her. Everyone’s entitled to an off day, but some of us less so than others. When you’re one of the few political voices in alternative culture, an artist who’s staked her reputation on doing things the hard way, those days are few and far between. “I feel like whatever motivates me to make music next either has to be something that’s incredibly good or incredibly bad,” she says quietly in a voice verging on the cynical. “At the moment I feel like I’m free-falling. It’s a bit scary. The main cultural musical icons right now are Britney Spears, who is a tragedy, and Kanye West, because he’s that crass about selling himself. Everybody talks about Britney being so pathetic for her performance at the VMAs. That shows no understanding of a human being and what they go through. If that’s how you get judged, and that’s what it takes to [make it] in America, then I don’t want that. I don’t want to compromise what I say to get on the radio.”
Read the rest here at Papermag.com: Rebel with a cause
