July 04, 2008
M.I.A. Performs Her Last Show to HippiesMusic
I remember the year I went to the Bonnaroo Music Festival. It was the summer of 2004, and I was trying to register people there to vote. Trying because getting people that are high registered to vote was really tough. I remember that I felt like I was the only brown girl in a sea of hippy-dippies.
If only I would have gone this year. I would have definitely seen another brown person.
“This is my last show,” the rapper M.I.A. announced from the stage of That Tent, “and I’m glad I’m spending it with all my hippies.” If, as she announced at least three times, it was M.I.A.’s last gig ever, she went out with a boom….For her finale, “Paper Planes,” the audience that spilled far outside the tent pumped fists happily at the gunshot sounds that are also one of the song’s hooks. “Thanks for coming to my last gig,” she said, amid noise that continued well after she was gone. [NewYorkTimes]
Is this the end of M.I.A.? Will she actually retire, or will she retire the way Jay-Z retired and be back within another year with a new album? She did cancel her European tour so maybe this was just the residual effect of that? Or maybe she simply doesn’t like touring?
M.I.A. never liked touring that much, anyway: “I’m an artist and it’s really difficult when you become the art, and you’re like, ‘Look at me!’ every day,” she explained. “I was never supposed to be like that. I’m eight things [painter, film director, musician, etc.], and I’ve figured out that you can get pleasure from being all of them, and that’s great. But I don’t want to be the thing. And that’s what touring is.”[Paste]
Or maybe it’s because M.I.A. got engaged last month and she’s feeling like she needs to settle down…
M.I.A. announced to her audience in Edmonton, Canada that she’s engaged! Not only that, but her beau-to-be comes from an “affluent” Montreal family. Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam agreed to marry Benjamin Brewer, the frontman/vocalist/guitarist for Exit and son of Warner Music Group’s chairman and CEO, Edgar Bronfman Jr.[MOG]
Is this a green card marriage or the real deal? Last year when I saw M.I.A. she kept talking about how she needed to get married so she could stay in the States. But then, why would she marry a Canadian?
Will M.I.A. retire? Will this be a love marriage for M.I.A.? Will she get kicked out of the U.S. for an expired Visa? Or is this all a part of her turning 30 meltdown? Only time will tell in the saga of M.I.A….
taz on July 4, 2008 11:45 AM in Music · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Marrying a billionaire's son.
Keepin' it real, keepin' it ghetto, Maya.
She should only marry a broke ass hipster?
It sounds like she's more interested in making music than touring. (She's awesome live though, so it'll be a shame if that was in fact her last gig ever?)
M.I.A. motto - throw them for a loop.
Aziz Ansari must be heart broken....here's him recounting the time he tried to chat MIA up Tamil style.
Typical desi female artiste. Retiring after marraige
i think she really is retiring. for a couple of years atleast. because being a musician was never what she had sought out to in the first place, it was never like her ambition. she got a schorlaship to go to st.martins, graduated from art school, did some graphic design things and some directing and i think it was when she went on tour with a band all across america to flim them, that she met other musicians like peaches gedolf..and then she got into making music and her first record won a mercury award (the grammys of britain). then she kinda blew up, became famous. i think it all happened kinda fast and there, she's now a musician.
i think the reitirement for real, looking at how her life has been in just the past few years.
maybe she's gonna go make a doc or something. i heard she'd been working on a few for some time that i guess she didn't finish.
i'm not sure of all the info here since i'm just pulling out of memory of something once read in wikipedia.
she did not win the mercury music prize, she lost to antony and the johnsons. i think that was the year she walked out in a huff.
and peaches who....!!
i thin she'll be back in some new form.
now I have to tell my 5 year old nephew that he has no chance in the world with MIA. Can a 5 year old drown his sorrow in a glass of beer?
I was a fan at the beginning but i'm really not shedding a tear over this one (unless the RC505 is your universe). Love ain't cynical at all, right?
God riddence I say. No more will I have to be driving down the road and then have my ears savaged by MIA music from the radio. Woot! :)
Bobby,
Ben Brewer's background is a little more interesting than being a "billionaire's son":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Bronfman%2C_Jr.#Personal_life
I love MIA's music but I think that the real reason she is retiring is because she absoultly sucks ass live. Her voice and music is not made for live action and I think it just hurts her image as a music artist. Hearing her live sounds like a cat orgy coming out of her mouth.
Oh Maya, we barely knew thee! At least do a couple Bollywood musical cameos before retiring!
I like MIA but she is an average rapper at best,she has good beats backing her up kind of like Kanye.
I think M.I.A. is a wonderful artist and if she needs a break from music then good for her. The music industry is a tough grind. Although I am not a musician I have read and heard a lot about the dirty politics of the music business. M.I.A. is right touring is hard work, recording, the record label just cares about sales and not the art. I hope this isn't the last we hear from M.I.A. Maybe she just needs a break?
I love M.I.A.'s song "Paper Planes"....I wish I had seen her in concert when she came here. I couldnt find anyone to go with :(((....its sad to say but I have no friends right now :(...
M.I.A. is the only South Asian girl that I know of that is fancied by every race. She's a hottie, for sure. I would hit that
awwwww but i like her music, well a lot of them, some i dont . . . maybe if she doesnt want to be an item she can put other ppl in her music vids and stop appearing in public in jazzy clothing, she doesnt have to stop SINGING . . . .
hey, she's marrying a CANADIAN. No possibility of a green card marriage. We're a separate country you know!!
Canada is a separate country, only legalistically. In all other ways, culturally, economically, socially, it is an extension of the US. Though Canadians like to think of themselves as better than Americans, they depend on America, not only for their economic existence, but as a source of culture and affirmation. There is nothing uniquely Canadian, except perhaps for part of French Canada, but the French Canadians don't think of themselves as part of Canada anyway.
She's not marrying a Canadian. Don't be stupid.
Edgar Bronfman's grandfather was a Canadian, but his part of the family has been settled in New York for many years. Edgar Bronfman Junior, Ben's father, went to a private high school in Manhattan, worked in Broadway and LA for a while, then move to London. (And that's not London, Ontario.)
Ben's mother, Sherri Brewer, has no connections to Canada. I'm not sure if, legally, Ben can claim Canadian citizenship, but I don'T see why he would have bothered. MIA is marrying an American (a very rich one).
I know Ben and he's a really nice dude. His band the exit, are fuckin awesome. Check out the album HOME FOR AN ISLAND. Sure to please.