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...

We’ve heard significant chunk of M.I.A.’s oft-delayed, “too positive” Matangi, but now it is available to stream in full before its release next Tuesday. On top of “Bad Girls,” “Y.A.L.A.,” “Bring The Noize,” “Come Walk With Me,&#8221...

For a second there, it looked like the YouTube Music Awards could be some kind of game-changer: Creative direction from Spike Jonze, performances from Arcade Fire and M.I.A. and Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler, The Creator, the entire idea of an A-list awards show that exists entirely on the internet. This could’ve flipped the entire awards-...