Here's the MIA Documentary Teaser Everyone Is Freaking Out About
LatestM.I.A. is familiar with controversy. Coming from a grimy immigrant community in London, she’s grown into superstardom all while casually lacing her songs with lyrics like, “like PLO, I don’t surrender.” But even after penetrating the mainstream with a performance at the Super Bowl (even that was marred with a controversial middle finger to the camera), M.I.A. is facing another media snafu.
A documentary about the artist has been in the works with her label, Roc Nation, for the last year. It was meant to be released along with her fourth studio album, “Matangi,” but both have been postponed, prompting M.I.A. to release the album’s first single, “Bring the Noize,” herself.
A teaser of the documentary has been making the rounds this weekend after the film’s director, Steve Loveridge, released it on his Tumblr page, fed up with the delays from Roc Nation. Roc Nation responded to Loveridge’s leak, which features footage of Julian Assange, Kanye West, Spike Jonze and Diplo, with a copyright infringement notice demanding he take the video down, to which Loveridge responded with:
“I really couldn’t give a flying fuck. Count me out. Would rather die than work on this…
nothing personal 🙂
Cool emoticon, dude. M.I.A. took to Twitter to drum up support for the film, stating that a Kickstarter might be in the works to fund the project:
im gonna need @kickstarter and my fans to help make this exsist , ive been black listed through normal channels !!!!!!!
— M.I.A (@MIAuniverse) July 7, 2013
But while the fate of the documentary and M.I.A.’s relationship with Roc Nation might remain uncertain in the coming weeks, what’s sure is that the film looks fucking awesome. For avid fans of M.I.A. like yours truly, getting a glimpse into the progression of a Sri Lankan refugee turned London immigrant rapper turned global phenomenon is enough to get me to donate a few bucks to a potential Kickstarter project so we get the full story, told through the words of M.I.A. This isn’t going to be another Life is But a Dream feat. BeyoncĂ© talking about how blessed she is into her Macbook. It’s going to be M.I.A. talking about how her father became a Sri Lankan terrorist into her Macbook. Also, at the 30 second mark in the video, she’s cleaning her fingernails with a gigantic pair of scissors, so there’s that.