Despite making the album of the decade, in my opinion, conquering America and introducing otherwise apathetic music lovers to world politics the idea of MIA being the artist of the decade is inconprehensible to some.
As part of the Notes on the Noughties series in The Guardian, Simon Reynolds questioned whether MIA could in fact be the artist that best represented the noughties. Note that I wrote QUESTIONED because that is all the article did. MIA does not feature highly on any of the millions of countdown lists that have sprung up recently.
Despite this fact the comments are filled with trolls disgusted at the idea a woman could be an influential force on the music scene today.
Instead they repeated well known myths used against every woman in rock. She's just a pretty girl, she doesn't write her own songs, she's all about the image, she wouldn't be anything without him... blah blah blah.
Let's bust some of those misogynistic myths today shall we:
She doesn't write her own songs
MIA has, does and always will write her own songs. She sings from a female perspective a lot of the time and I can always tell whether songs like that were written by men. Hers were not.
She owes her success to Diplo
Diplo produced a couple of tracks and was involved in the Piracy Funds Terrorism mixtape but that was it really. How could a guy from Philly invoke the third-world, party, political mashup that MIA has. She has done it because she lives it.
She's just a hipster who's only known for wearing funny clothes
MIA started with no particular style when she first came onto the scene. She would perform in a t-shirt and jeans skirt and still be cool. Now she has transformed that cool into day glow catsuits and multi-coloured sunglasses and she's no better or worse for it.
Her 'pseudo-political schtick' is just to look cool
This was an actual comment on the article. My only response to that is you think that living her childhood in a country going through a civil war, experiencing life in Britain as an immigrant first hand and having a father that's part of the rebel Tamil Tigers means she's only doing it for the shock value.
Americans only bought her political message because she's 'asian'
Another actual comment on the article that manages to be both racist and xenophobic at the same time.
Her songs just aren't good
Errrr... They are. They just are. Sometimes I think people just put their fingers in their ears when a female artist comes on the scene. It's the only explanation for this because everyone knows MIA is the future.
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