The title of this post comes from a Dilated Peoples track in which Rakaa declares, “journalists, we’re journalists too, we can strike back.” The saying applies to M.I.A. right now, who has been on a media firestorm promoting her forthcoming album. She talked to Complex magazine about the artistry of Jay-Z and Nas, she told Spin that she hung out with Tupac, and now she fires back at a New York Times Reporter who wrote an in-depth story highlighting conflicting images and messages of M.I.A. while simultaneously exaggerating her fondness for french fries.
The article in question was written by Lynn Hirschberg and is title “M.I.A.’s Agitprop Pop”. If you’re like me, you inferred the definition of agitprop before looking it up in a dictionary. It means a blend of agitation and propaganda. In a sense Hirschberg’s article centers on M.I.A.’s process of making music. Hirschberg highlights the way that M.I.A. expands her art beyond the music to include her style of dress, and the political stances she makes on and off record. While doing that though, Hirschberg continually points out opposites in M.I.A.’s life, and quotes her collaborators to sometimes make it appear that M.I.A. in her very search for authenticity veers off the path… Something like that. The article is a nine-page read and I found it very interesting. Check it out here.
M.I.A. did not find it as interesting. She feels Hirschberg edited the article wrongly, leaving out key points, including the fact that she told M.I.A. to order the french fries she symbolically eats in Hirschberg’s narrative. M.I.A. posted her own audio from the interview on her website today along with a new track “I’m A Singer”, which is perfectly fitting for this situation. This posting follows M.I.A.’s tweet about the interview in which she called the news “an opinion” and posted Hirschberg’s phone number.
Read the article. at the link above. Hear the song below.
[audio: http://rubyhornet.com/media/rh/music/mia_im_a_singer_haters.mp3|width=180]