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And Finally
MIA responds to New York Times interview through song
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 1 June 2010
MIA continued her feuding with New York Times journalist Lynn Hirschberg this weekend by posting a diss track on her website.
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 some hypocrisies, noting that after giving that politicised performance while heavily pregnant at the Grammys, and pledging to give birth in a pool to “embrace the pain and struggle” of the world’s underclass, she then actually gave birth in a private room at LA’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Hirschberg calls that anomaly “one of many contradictions that seem to provide the narrative for MIA’s life and art”.
After seeing the interview, MIA initially unleashed her anger on Twitter, mainly by publishing Hirschberg’s personal phone number, implying it was her own number, resulting in loads of fans trying to call it and Hirschberg’s phone going into meltdown. Speaking to the New York Observer, Hirschberg said that the fact MIA released her phone number in that way was “unethical” but “not surprising”, adding: “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”.
In the diss song, posted to the blog on MIA’s label site – neetrecordings.com/blog – under the headline “here’s the truff”, the singer seems to accuse Hirschberg of deliberately ignoring her political messages to get a better story. Lyrics include “Why the hell would a journalist be thick as shit” and “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”.
