M.I.A. is supposed to be a messenger, but the mission of her music is often obscured by critics’ and listeners’ schismatic view of her work. But before her war with the NFL, her allegiance with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, or those goddamn truffle-fries, she was a neon prism at the end of a long musical [...]

M.I.A.’s Matangi is out today and along with the religious iconography that is referenced throughout the album, in a recent interview with NPR, the “Bad Girls” rapper has explained that the middle finger she gave at the 2012 Super Bowl halftime show is part of that spiritual expression. When asked why she did it, sh...

Talking to Pitchfork last month, M.I.A. called “Paper Planes” “an accident”: “It wasn’t a song we made for the masses. It took two years to get popular, and there were many fights about censoring the gunshot sounds.” And she’s right; the track took a weird and circui...

Grab some popcorn (but don’t dare leave butter stains on that keyboard) and cozy up in front of your laptop screen because the inaugural YouTube Music Awards are going down this evening live from New York’s Pier 36. Reggie Watts and Jason Schwartzman will host (crossing my fingers for an original-lineup Phantom Planet reunion...

Last night, before M.I.A.’s set at NYC’s Terminal 5, Julian Assange Skyped into the venue from his current home in London’s Ecuadorian embassy. M.I.A. has had a long mutual admiration with the WikiLeaks founder, taking inspiration from him on her Vicki Leekx mixtape in 2010 and writing the theme to his The World Tom...