Music Video Monday… MIA – Bad Girls/Madonna feat. MIA and Nicki Minaj – Give Me All Your Luvin’
by Devil’s Food Cake
MIA is my hero. Say what you will about her politics – many people have, and that really is an interesting conversation – but musically, she’s magic. Bad Girls, which you might have heard in less complete form as part of the Vicki Leekx mixtape, is so uber-awesome I’ve had it on repeat all weekend and most of today.
via loft965
And the video is equally GREAT – obviously – all badasses in keffiyehs and spinning/drifting cars and horses and shit. As you do.
Oh and BY THE BY, she was also a cheerleader in Madonna’s latest video, which you can see here:
…which she also performed at the Superbowl in Amerrrrrrca (apparently that is a big thing there) AND WHERE SHE DID THIS:
via entertainment weekly
This is also a big deal, because now everyone’s flipping out about her flipping them off. Cue lots of “how could this happen/what about the children/how very dare she” and comparisons to Janet Jackson.
Related:
Music Video Monday: M.I.A. – Born Free
Thumbnail shot via GQ.com
I really really like this song. It’s in my head in a big way.
However.
Your comment about her politics got me a’googlin’, and found me this little gem http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/magazine/30mia-t.html?pagewanted=all ,
which reminded me (along with interviews with, amongst others, Lana Del Rey and Elly Jackson), that the fact that there’s an almost limitless appetite for opinions from celebrities, doesn’t mean that people should ever get to hear them. You can be good at what you do, and have atrocious opinions on all sorts of things, and often, the Kate Moss approach is the best one… if you don’t want everyone who ever reads about anything you say imagine that they would hate you if they actually met you. (Not to denigrate MIA here; I feel rather the same about Oscar Wilde.)
I think you make a fair point, many celebrities talk complete crap on issues they have no understanding on. But I think MIA is highly intelligent and also has first hand experience relating to the topics she talks about. I feel that sometimes it is important for those in the spotlight to bring to light important issues. Furthermore you say that she should stick to what she’s good at. Well she’s good at writing rap music with a political undertone. She is an artist and for us to gain a greater understanding of her music we need to understand her and her views just like we would if she was a painter or poet or the like. Otherwise we would just end up with a 2-D interpretation of her music.
I think in any case, it’s not right to say that people who are musicians or actors or entertainers in general have no place talking about politics or activism or other causes. Fame gives you a great platform to air your views, and moreover, do something or encourage others to do something about them. I don’t just believe that this is true about MIA, I think it’s true about a number of celebrities – Lady Gaga, Angelina Jolie, Zadie Smith, Joanna Lumley – these are all people who are specifically famous or celebrated for one thing, who have used their fame to bring attention to and campaign for completely different things – and they’ve done it well.
On another note, that Lynn Hirschberg article, in my opinion, was pretty much a hack job – it quoted MIA erroneously and, of course, there was that whole truffle french fry ridiculousness.
This sounds like a Kylie song. The only things good about this are Nicki Minaj and MIA.