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M.I.A. Sounds Off On Oprah Winfrey, Pharrell Williams & Lady Gaga

Thursday Jul 29, 2010 – By Black Voices

From Black Voices — This year’s annual Metropolitan Ball brought out an array of tastemakers from the fashion industry — not to mention appearances from Vogue magazine’s Editor-in-ChiefAnna Wintour, Kerry Washington and Oprah Winfrey.

For London rap star M.I.A. the glitzy gala, which took place May 3 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, left a bitter taste in her mouth when it came to some of the event’s attendees.

In an exclusive interview with London’s Time Out magazine, the ‘Paper Planes’ lyricist vented on the treatment she received from producer Pharrell Williams and the almighty Winfrey.

“He was just telling me off like crazy: ‘You can’t just keep beating people up…,’” she recalled about her interaction with Williams. “I thought he’d seen the ‘Born Free’ video, so I was actually listening because I thought he must be saying my video’s too violent. He was like, ‘You know you can’t just keep giving people that shit, you have to hand out the sugar.’”

“I was a bit offended because he was talking about the shepherd and the sheep, and I was like, ‘I never think I’m making music for sheep, I’m making music for shepherds… people who think like individuals and who want to be their own f—ing leader.’”

Diddy complimented the Grammy Award nominee (legally known as Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam) following the N.E.R.D.frontman’s offhand comments and insisted he apologize to her.

(Continue Reading @ Black Voices…)

Q says:

July 30, 2010 at 1:49 pm

I feel like a piece of the information needed in this article is missing. Like, what did MIA do/say/rap for Pharell to go off on her? Or for Oprah to give her the cold shoulder? Can I please be enlightened?

↑ Reply

Clutch says:

July 30, 2010 at 2:02 pm

Hi Q – this is not the full article – please click “continue reading” to visit Black Voices to read the complete article.

Clutch

janQUA says:

July 30, 2010 at 11:42 pm

Do people really think Oprah can make all those millions without completely selling her soul to the powers that be? No…the fact that she lauds a psycho like Laady Gaga is proof. M.I.A. is coming with the real….and people don’t remember what that looks like anymore

TLyn says:

August 1, 2010 at 1:11 am

MIA will tell you all the time that she comes from the slums of India so she’s bound to kept it real! She’s obviously not down for all the “hollyweird” “brand new-york” steez and wants her fans to know how she responds in these situations. The truth is right in Pharrell’s statement where he refers to the fans as “sheep”. Once you get wealthy, you’re brainwashed to think there’s no problem viewing the world this way. It’s like, “Let the brainless sheep wallow in ignorance and poverty because you can’t help them anyway”. And if you read the comments in response to this article over at BV you will see that most people just don’t get it. They will eat anything that media shoves in their face (ie Lady Gaga) Therein lies the real controversy.

What really bothers me are the comments on BV asking things like, “who does MIA think she is” and “MIA needs to get MIA” “Oprah can help her career… she shouldn’t act like that”. Really??

This is one of the many things wrong with America. We don’t rally behind what’s right until the media tells us it’s safe to. I’m from VA and I LOVE Pharrell, but now I’m wary. And it doesn’t matter to him, but I’m happy to say “if this is what he represents, then I’m through with supporting his music & buying his lackluster LPs”.

yawn says:

August 1, 2010 at 8:37 pm

I see what you’re saying about the media spilling out bs and people just taking it for what its worse but MIA is as fake as they come. She’s a product, a brand just like Lady Gaga. Only difference is she has everyone convinced that she’s so anti anti to the point that she doesn’t stand for much of anything. She claims she’s a freedom fighter but is in direct support of the LTTE group. She lives in some upscale Brentwood mansion with her billion dollar baby daddy but pretends she’s from the slums. Puh-lease. Before she made it big (and I’m talking about 3 years before people were dancing to Paper Planes her records were already on rotation. She was something new and exciting back then. Now she’s just another brand