The Rehabilitation of M.I.A

Just over a decade ago, M.I.A showed us the future of South Asian electronic music. With the release of her seminal sophomore effort Kala, the London-based Tamil artist delivered the sonic blueprint that has catapulted the careers of homegrown artists such as Nucleya, Su Real and many others. By the time you reach Kala’s penultimate showpiece–the breakout single ‘Paper Planes’–you’ve pretty much gone through the evolution of the Indian electronic music scene since 2012. Born Mathangi ‘Maya’ Arulpragasam to Sri Lankan Tamil parents, M.I.A has been the defining voice for a generation, representing the Brown community and bringing the post 9/11 sounds and issues of the Global South to mainstream America while simultaneously conquering the cultural landscape.

However, since 2014, she’s dealt with a steadily declining pop-star quotient, with two albums, namely Matangi (2013) and AIM (2016), receiving lukewarm reception and an online backlash stemming from her comments on the Black Lives Matter movement and a cancelled headlining slot at the inaugural Afro-Punk in London in 2016. M.I.A has remained steadfastly defiant and is scheduled to re-enter the mainstream consciousness this year with the release of an autobiographical documentary, titled M.I.A/Matangi/Maya, directed by Steve Loveridge.

In 2016, in an interview with ES magazine, Maya responded to a question about the Black Lives Matter movement with the now infamous quote, “Is Beyonce or Kendrick Lamar going to say Muslim Lives Matter? Or Syrian Lives Matter? Or this kid in Pakistan matters?” Simran Hans, in a piece published by The Fader, wrote a response critiquing this response–arguing about how it was wrong on Maya’s part to conflate the movement with the racism experienced by people of colour in general. She was, as Fariha Roisin noted in her brilliant piece ‘M.I.A and the Defense of Nuance’, cancelled by the masses. Roisin’s piece also noted the complexity of the life that Maya has lived–a life filled with violence, displacement and a struggle to have one’s voice heard in a world that finds it all too convenient to ignore it.

Maya’s relationship with the public, and the media, is complicated. In an interview on CTV’s Your Morning show, she detailed how the Sri Lankan government launched a PR campaign against her, and claiming that the less-than flattering profiles published in The Guardian and The New York Times, in which she was called a “cheerleader of terrorists”, were a result of this campaign.

Today, the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement is the subject of the scrutiny following the participation of multiple artists, including Roger Waters and Lorde, in the cultural boycott of Israel. The BDS movement and its subsequent coverage has once again raised the question of that, in my opinion, was raised by Maya as part of the interview with ES magazine–are pop-stars expected to view the issues plaguing the communities of the world exclusively through an American lens?

Maya was born in the fraught and violent conditions that beset the Sri Lankan civil war. From being denied a normal relationship with her father, to the constant flux of her life while moving from Sri Lanka to India to the United Kingdom, her life and art have been defined by displacement. It follows that she feels sympathy with the communities that have been similarly affected by recent American foreign policy in the Middle-East and South Asia. In my opinion, the point that she was trying to articulate in the ES magazine interview was that artists, and pop-stars in particular, are unfairly expected to align their perspectives about the world with the American perspective, irrespective of their background. This is by no means a statement to diminish the struggle of the African-American people against institutionalised racism and state-sponsored violence. However, it serves to highlight the myopic view that guides the cultural industry and its coverage by the media, one that centres the conversation around America and its issues.

The argument revolves around the standards we set for pop-stars in a globalised society. Are Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Beyonce and other American stars who enjoy a global following, exempt from commenting on issues affecting the other side of the world? Is it fair for an immigrant star like M.I.A, arguably the biggest musical icon from the Global South in recent history and one that found success in the West, to be expected to comment on public discourse from an American perspective? Do we allow artists to prioritise issues according to their and their community’s experiences, or do we expect them to fall in line with the views of dominant forces in the industry?

While Roisin’s piece centred, as she described it, on the dissonance of M.I.A, there needs to be an honest conversation about the lenses through which we expect pop-stars to interact with and comment on public discourse. It is an irrefutable fact that the Brown community has been a significant purveyor of racist practices against Black communities around the world and, as can be seen in cultural movements, benefited from appropriating Black music and culture. M.I.A has as well, but she’s always been a supporter of the community’s struggle as well. Her statement highlighting the inequality in the way conversations and issues are prioritised in the cultural landscape is important, and it’s time we address this, and recognise the importance of Maya’s work again.

Follow Uday Kapur on Twitter.