M.I.A.’s Fight With the Industry She Wants no Part of

M.I.A. seems to exist comfortably within the folds of contradiction. She wants to give a voice to the wretched of the earth, but she wants to do it in the most abrasive way possible. She seems to derive equal satisfaction from presenting her work before the judges, juries, and executioners of pop culture as she does reveling in their banishing her from the proceedings and telling her to “stay in her lane.” It’s not enough for her to be heard, she needs to be heard through a muzzle, even when it’s of her own making.

It should come as no surprise, then, that her Twitter response to not having her “Borders” video shortlisted by the MTV Video Music Awards threw gleeful accusations of “Racism sexism classism elitism,” bookended by the hashtags #hahahahhaahahhaha and #dontwantyourlane.

“BORDERS came representing people outside US showing [the world],” she followed up. “This is a perfect example of ‘allowed’ voice vs excluded voices.”

MIA – BORDERS is not included in the VMAs #hahahahhaahahhaha!! Racism sexism classism elitism #dontwantyourlane!

— M.I.A (@MIAuniverse) July 28, 2016

BORDERS came representing people outside US showing ?. This is a perfect example of “allowed” voice vs excluded voices .Even if U direct it.

— M.I.A (@MIAuniverse) July 28, 2016

not here 4 EGO or Accolades but know before you tell other ? artists they have the same platform as major US artists coz they don’t #?

— M.I.A (@MIAuniverse) July 28, 2016

The video for “Borders,” which M.I.A. directed herself, places the artist in the middle of imagery which recalls refugee crises of the past decade, from the overcrowded flotillas, beaches, and encampments of the Syrian refugee crisis, to a reference to the Melilla border fence between Spain and Morocco which was challenged by African migrants back in 2005.

This comes on the heels of a controversy over comments M.I.A. made to the Evening Standard about Black Lives Matter earlier this year, which resulted in her being dropped as a headliner from the Afropunk Festival:

“It’s interesting that in America the problem you’re allowed to talk about is Black Lives Matter. It’s not a new thing to me — it’s what Lauryn Hill was saying in the 1990s, or Public Enemy in the 1980s. Is Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar going to say Muslim Lives Matter? Or Syrian Lives Matter? Or this kid in Pakistan matters? That’s a more interesting question. And you cannot ask it on a song that’s on Apple, you cannot ask it on an American TV programme, you cannot create that tag on Twitter, Michelle Obama is not going to hump you back.”

Her comments didn’t land well with a lot of people, and for good reason. While her efforts to place the everyday nightmares faced by those who live in war-torn poverty before consumers of Western pop culture are noble, her comments came off as a snipe at the BLM movement and those who are working to keep it relevant.

They also betray a failure to see all struggles against the power structures that exploit people as inherently connected; focusing on one regional crisis doesn’t require diminishing another. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, that actually seems to be her point, but that point was lost in the irony of her own contradiction.

Her response to the controversy did little to resolve this incongruity:

A#blacklivesmatter B#Muslimlivesmatter. I’m not Muslim . My criticism wasn’t about Beyoncé. It’s how u can say A not B right now in 2016.

— M.I.A (@MIAuniverse) April 21, 2016

My question was,on American platforms what do they allow you to stand up for in 2016. This has been the number 1 question for me.

— M.I.A (@MIAuniverse) April 21, 2016

She almost has a point here. While there has been a very real push to keep BLM down as a fringe movement of extremists, and while the movement has still only had limited success in bringing national coverage to a select few cases of police abuse and neglect, major inroads have been made that have countered efforts against BLM and put their cause on the teleprompters of media pundits and politicians alike.

Muslims, on the other hand, have faced more than their fair share of neglect and human rights abuses across the world, but these have been almost completely overshadowed by fear and anger over terrorism that the vast majority of muslims have nothing to do with. Many muslims, or even people simply fleeing from countries associated with Islam, are being left to die, often on the boats and rafts that they fled in. They deserve a voice to speak up for them as well.

But where M.I.A. misses the mark entirely is in presuming that anyone is ever really “allowed” to speak on any topic of oppression. If that were the case, there would likely be no oppression to speak of. If BLM were allowed to do their thing unimpeded, then they wouldn’t have to deal with so much blow back at protests, and Beyoncé wouldn’t have been criticized so heavily for showing her support for them at the Super Bowl.

No one, strictly speaking, is allowed to speak on any subject, but they do it anyway and that’s what gives it importance. M.I.A. seems to understand this well, but her way of contributing to it is by sometimes manufacturing controversy where there doesn’t need to be any. And as a Sri Lankan refugee from Tamil Nadu whose entire career has revolved around bringing world music and the contentious issues that inspire it into mainstream culture, M.I.A. has never had any shortage of controversy, so what is she after?

It’s entirely possible that M.I.A. is troubled by her own success. For instance, her claim about what issues can’t be addressed by a song on Apple is contradicted by the fact that her video for “Borders” was actually released by Apple Music, a point which she acknowledged in an interview with Time Magazine as far back as December of 2015. She’s blowing down the doors to the system and finding herself a part of that system.

Perhaps that’s just the struggle of an artist who refuses to be gentrified by success. M.I.A. may have started out as a refugee from an embattled region of Sri Lanka, but after four hit albums, the artist has to actively work to stay connected to her roots.

Success often leads to complacency, and complacency is the death of activism. Many artists struggle with a fear of complacency, alongside the survivor’s guilt of having come from nothing and being thrust into wealth and recognition. M.I.A.’s own struggle with being a successful grown up in a world that wasn’t meant for her perhaps drives a lot of her need to be acknowledged by a system that she wants to reject.

“I feel like I should have died a long time ago,” she told the Evening Standard. “I’m surprised I’m still alive, to be honest. I came from war. When I was growing up I didn’t really think I’d live beyond about 25. I never thought I would be old enough to drive or have a house or raise a child. Having to do it is really difficult.”

M.I.A. wants to stay angry, and that’s alright. Hip-hop, and music in general, needs angry voices to contrast those that just want to indulge in the obscenity of riches that the industry affords to the few while the rest fight for crumbs below. But when that anger appears to be directed at important social movements, or artists who are getting recognition for said movements, it’s going to undermine the message you’re trying to get across.

Was M.I.A. snubbed by the VMAs? Perhaps. Was it because of racism, classism, sexism, and elitism? Maybe some of the above, maybe all, maybe none. But when a top contender for video of the year features a black woman from Houston belting from the top of a cop car in flooded New Orleans, it’s hard to accuse the VMAs of only rewarding that which is most agreeable.

It would be nice to see the plight of refugees featured in M.I.A.’s video getting some recognition at the VMAs as well, but we shouldn’t make the mistake of forgetting that awards shows don’t actually matter. They’re a fashion show that hands out gold stars for popularity. They’re not important.

What is important is that somebody, anybody, is out there reminding people that the struggle for human rights doesn’t stop at borders. M.I.A. does that better than most artists currently working, but for a lot of listeners her message is hard to swallow when she appears to be insulting Black Lives Matter on the side.

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