Kid Cudi has kicked MIA off his current ‘Rebel Ragers Tour’ after fans responded negatively to on-stage comments she made during a show in Dallas this weekend. She has now responded on X by telling the world to stop “gaslighting my words”, because “that is the work of Satan”.
According to Variety, MIA was booed by Kid Cudi fans during her set this weekend. Remarks that seemed to go down badly with the audience included the line “I’ve been canceled for many reasons - but I never thought I would be canceled for being a brown Republican voter”.
She also said “I can’t do ‘Illygal” - referring to her 2010 song - before adding “though some of you could be in the audience”, implying there may be illegal immigrants in the crowd.
When that garnered boos, she responded, “all right, I’m illegal, half of my team are not here because they didn’t get the visa, OK?”, before adding, “don’t listen to what the bots say on the internet”.
Given past MIA social media posts have implied sympathy for the anti-vax movement and support for Donald Trump, those comments may not seem that controversial. But Kid Cudi was apparently clear from the start he didn’t want any support acts offending his fans.
In a statement this weekend confirming MIA had been axed for his tour, he wrote, “I told my management to send a notice to her team before we started the tour that I didn’t want anything offensive at my shows, cuz I already knew what time it was, and I was assured things were understood”.
“After the last couple shows, I’ve been flooded with messages from fans that were upset by her rants”, he continued. “This, to me, is very disappointing and I won’t have someone on my tour making offensive remarks that upsets my fanbase”.
Responding to her axing on X, MIA writes “I started this intro to the song with the statement saying I'm illygal, and I said my team hasn’t gotten visas yet. Then played a song that had lyrics saying ‘fuck the law’, which I still believe, if the law is unjust ‘fuck it’. Do not gaslight my words - that is the work of satan”.
She then adds, “I wrote ‘Borders’ and ‘Illygal’ and ‘Paper Planes’ before you thought immigrant rights were cool. I’ve had these battles by myself without the help of millions of fans backing me. I don’t need this virtue signal era to all of a sudden erase an entire life I’ve led”.
So, make of that what you will. But know this: MIA is no longer part of Kid Cudi’s ‘Rebel Ragers Tour’, that is for certain.
