Music

M.I.A. on the Black Lives Matter Movement: "Is Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar Going to Say Muslim Lives Matter?"

She also took to Twitter to speak on the subject.

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Complex Original

In a new interview with ES Magazine, M.I.A. opened up about the Black Lives Matter movement and Beyoncé's 2016 Super Bowl halftime show performance. "It’s interesting that in America the problem you’re allowed to talk about is Black Lives Matter. It's not a new thing to me — it’s what Lauryn Hill was saying in the 1990s, or Public Enemy in the 1980s," M.I.A. said in the interview. "Is Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar going to say Muslim Lives Matter? Or Syrian Lives Matter? Or this kid in Pakistan matters? That’s a more interesting question. You can't ask it on a song that’s on Apple, you cannot ask it on an American TV programme, you cannot create that tag on Twitter, Michelle Obama is not going to hump you back."

The writer of the story, Richard Godwin, also wrote that M.I.A. didn't see Beyoncé's Super Bowl halftime performance. After the interview came out, M.I.A. took to Twitter to clarify her quotes, and said that she wasn't being critical of Beyoncé but that she was just wondering how it could be one or the other in society right now. You can read the full interview here, and check out her tweets below.

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