OPEN LETTER TO M.I.A.
So, I read recently that you'll be opening up for Gwen "Tokenizing All Things Japanese" Stefani. And you could say that I'm a little upset. In case you haven't noticed, Gwen has a flygirl posse of Japenese chicks named after her clothing line. Well, I find it hard to believe you wouldn't have noticed that. What's the deal? Did she ask you to join in? Maybe she wanted to supplement her hot Asian booty squad with a Sri Lankan girl. Maybe you got an engraved invitation and a Le Sportsac.
Regardless, do you know what this is called? It's called selling out. Which, really, isn't your fault. It must be good that someone's willing to buy. (Poets, for example, almost never become sell-outs because nobody's buying. It simplifies things and allows us to remain completely self-righteous.) Still, I wish that, in the process of selling out you could sell to somebody a little less horrifyingly racist. Before this, I was shilling "Arular" to anyone who would listen as the very best political album of the year. That was before the Nissan commercials, by the way.
Knowing you, I like to think that you're using this expanded platform to get your message across to a larger audience. I like to think that you're going to rip them apart with your incisive, inside-out politicization of the body as a site of combat. But MTV edits all of that stuff out of your songs, so who's listening anyway?
And believe me, I'm not an enraged indie kid who's trying to claim you for "our side." If anything, it was a little more fucked up to see a carefully dressed white dude slumming it in a pick-up truck and blasting "Pull Up the People" past the Pottery Barn. Definitely. Not. Cool.
Next time you want to hitch onto some coat tails, call Missy Elliott instead.
Love,
Sarah
So, I read recently that you'll be opening up for Gwen "Tokenizing All Things Japanese" Stefani. And you could say that I'm a little upset. In case you haven't noticed, Gwen has a flygirl posse of Japenese chicks named after her clothing line. Well, I find it hard to believe you wouldn't have noticed that. What's the deal? Did she ask you to join in? Maybe she wanted to supplement her hot Asian booty squad with a Sri Lankan girl. Maybe you got an engraved invitation and a Le Sportsac.
Regardless, do you know what this is called? It's called selling out. Which, really, isn't your fault. It must be good that someone's willing to buy. (Poets, for example, almost never become sell-outs because nobody's buying. It simplifies things and allows us to remain completely self-righteous.) Still, I wish that, in the process of selling out you could sell to somebody a little less horrifyingly racist. Before this, I was shilling "Arular" to anyone who would listen as the very best political album of the year. That was before the Nissan commercials, by the way.
Knowing you, I like to think that you're using this expanded platform to get your message across to a larger audience. I like to think that you're going to rip them apart with your incisive, inside-out politicization of the body as a site of combat. But MTV edits all of that stuff out of your songs, so who's listening anyway?
And believe me, I'm not an enraged indie kid who's trying to claim you for "our side." If anything, it was a little more fucked up to see a carefully dressed white dude slumming it in a pick-up truck and blasting "Pull Up the People" past the Pottery Barn. Definitely. Not. Cool.
Next time you want to hitch onto some coat tails, call Missy Elliott instead.
Love,
Sarah
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