Yesterday, a trailer of the upcoming documentary for M.I.A. came out. M.I.A. herself was vocal about promoting the YouTube link on Twitter. According to her, the documentary was meeting resistance from normal channels, and so she asked her fans to get behind a potential Kickstarter campaign. However, the documentary trailer was shortly taken off the internet due to a copyright infringement claim.
The video had been uploaded by the documentary's director, Steve Loveridge, who was complaining that he had been receiving the runaround from Interscope and Roc Nation. Loveridge took to his Tumblr to offer play-by-play on the wrangling that shortly followed, starting with YouTube's infringement letter and culminating in an e-mail exchange between a RocNation employee and himself, where Loveridge stated simply, "Would rather die than work on this..."
It is unclear what Loveridge's quitting means for the documentary moving forward, or if it will actually go through in time for the release of M.I.A.'s Matangi. Loveridge was M.I.A.'s best friend In college; he wrote the intro to her autobiography. In the meantime, M.I.A. continues to rally her fan base in what appears to be a Lupe Fiasco-esque tug-of-war between artist and label.
[via Pitchfork]
RELATED: Listen: M.I.A. "Only 1 U"
