M.I.A.
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Personal, Political, and Poetic: A Conversation with Susan Briante
Susan Briante discusses The Market Wonders, her newest collection of poetry in which she draws on market indicators like the Dow Jones Industrial Average to construct a criticism of contemporary culture.
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Vince Staples’s Challenge
Vince Staples appeared on Hot 97 recently to deliver a freestyle, challenging #BlackLivesMatter protestors to make the future brighter through positive community action, among many other things. (He also would be happy if his girlfriend looked like M.I.A., for instance.) Listen to the full rap…
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“Borders” and Brand Controversy
MIA’s video for “Borders” is controversial in many ways: it’s full of refugee imagery, MIA rapping in the middle of boats packed with bodies. But its biggest backlash comes from what seems like its least controversial gesture—in some shots, MIA is wearing a…
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Song of the Day: “Straight To Hell”
The Clash are famous for their album London Calling and their ubiquitous single, “Rock the Casbah,” which is notable perhaps for its incendiary political message—a denunciation of the Iranian ban on Western music following the 1979 revolution. But it’s “Straight to Hell,” a commemoration…
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“The Only Tamil Rapper”
NPR titled this interview “M.I.A. On Being Heard,” and they were not joking around. In it, the Sri Lankan-British rapper relates all the things she’s had to do over the years to convince people to pay attention to a woman…
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When I Was Young
“And he came to interview me and suddenly I felt like he was trying to corner me. ‘Oh, what’s it like being a terrorist,’ and ‘You’re just doing it for shock value so people will buy your records.’ “And then…