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And Finally Beef Of The Week
CMU Beef Of The Week #21: MIA v Lynn Hirschberg
By Andy Malt | Published on Saturday 5 June 2010
The latest step in an ongoing feud between MIA and New York Times journalist Lynn Hirschberg saw the musician hit back in song.
MIA is mightily pissed off with Hirschberg over a write-up of a recent conversation between the journalist and singer in the New York paper’s magazine, which touched on MIA’s links to Sri Lanka, her US visa problems and her family.
Hirschberg also accused the singer of “many contradictions that seem to provide the narrative for MIA’s life and art”, including the fact that MIA had pledged to give birth in a pool to “embrace the pain and struggle” of the world’s underclass, but then actually gave birth in a private room at LA’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Phase one of MIA’s retaliation was to post Hirschberg’s phone number on Twitter, implying it was her own. As a result, the journalist was bombarded with calls from fans hoping to speak to MIA. Speaking to the New York Observer, Hirschberg said of this: “It’s a fairly unethical thing to do, but I don’t think it’s surprising; she’s a provocateur, and provocateurs want to be provocative”.
Clearly still riled, perhaps in part because of Hirschberg’s nonplussed response, MIA went down to the studio and wrote a song about it all, using Various Production’s ‘Hater’ as a backing track, which she then posted on the website of her record label, NEET Recordings, along with excerpts from a recording of the interview.
In the song, MIA accuses Hirschberg of being “thick as shit” and twisting her words for the newspaper’s own political ends, amongst other things. She sings at one point: “You can talk shit to me I’m used to it/You make me hard with the wounds that I have to lick/You can pick on me and I can see it at a click/You’re a racist, I wouldn’t trust you one bit”.
Yesterday, The New York Times published a statement, clarifying part of the article, saying: “While discussing her efforts to draw attention to the civil war in her home country, Sri Lanka, she was quoted as saying: ‘I wasn’t trying to be like Bono. He’s not from Africa – I’m from there. I’m tired of pop stars who say give peace a chance. I’d rather say give war a chance. The whole point of going to the Grammys was to say: Hey, 50,000 people are gonna die next month, and here’s your opportunity to help. And no one did’. While MIA did make those remarks, she did not make the entire statement at the same point in the interview, or in the order in which it was presented”.
I’m not sure the statement will go very far to appease MIA. Perhaps Hirschberg will write a song of her own to either calm or aggravate the situation. While you wait for that, have a listen to MIA’s here: neetrecordings.com/blog
This Beef Of The Week comes from this edition of the CMU Weekly. Subscribe to the CMU Weekly here.
