M.I.A. responds to Kid Cudi tour cancellation: “Do not gas light my words, that is the work of Satan”

    M.I.A. has responded to being dropped from Kid Cudi’s tour, telling people not to “gas light my words” after accusations of “offensive remarks”.

    Yesterday (May 4), Cudi announced that he had dropped her from his ongoing Rebel Ragers Tour after being “flooded with messages from fans” who had complained of statements made by M.I.A. as his opening act at two early shows in the run.

    In Dallas on May 2, she was booed after saying, “I can’t do ‘Illygirl’, though some of you could be in the audience”, and “I’ve been cancelled for many reasons, I never thought I would be cancelled for being a brown Republican voter”.

    Cudi said that he had told his management to “send a notice” to M.I.A.’s team ahead of the tour due to past controversies, and said having to drop her was “very disappointing”, but he would not “have someone on my tour making offensive remarks that upset my fanbase”.

    Now, M.I.A. has responded to being let go with a series of posts on X that have seen her stand by her words.

    Replying to another user posting footage from the Dallas show, she explained that ‘Illygirl’ was a song she wrote for her 2010 album ‘Maya’, and she said she played the intro as a statement because “my team hasn’t gotten visas yet”.

    She said she then played a song that “had lyrics saying ‘FU&% THE LAW’, which I still believe, if the law is unjust F@&% IT.”

    “Do not gas light my words,” she continued. “That is the work of Satan.”

    “I wrote ‘Borders’ and [‘Illygirl’] and ‘Paper Planes’ before you thought immigrant rights were cool. I’ve had these battles by myself without the help of millions of fans backing me. I don’t need this virtue signal era to all of a sudden erase an entire life I’ve led,” she continued.

    “Jesus was an immigrant and a rebel. I have no apology for the judgemental. The wicked and the [ignorant]. For those are spirits that we must over come our lives and in this world. Jesus returns to lead the world justly because there is injustice in this world. I’m proud of those who fight for it everyday. God bless you.”

    When an X user then referenced her endorsement of Donald Trump, she replied: “Don’t be an agent of division, I can’t vote in the US, and 48 per cent of Latin community voted Trump. So are you going to hate them all? We must unite to make this country, that everyone wants to live in a better place. If you are easily led by rumour then you don’t see the light for yourself. I pray for your awakening.”

    Ahead of the 2024 election, M.I.A. threw her weight behind Trump’s campaign, saying he would “ride America through the most challenging four years”, adding that “RFK will inherit America when God is ready to replant and rebuild it righteously”.

    M.I.A. has now quote tweeted those comments and appeared to distance herself from the endorsement, arguing that people “practice divination”, “read tarot cards” and “go to witches”, yet they “can’t take a tweet from me suggesting common sense prediction that Trump was gonna win”.

    “Maybe that’s my anointing, my gift, my true ability to guide you to what is next, that’s why as an artist I get copied, like I’ve always said what will happen,” she continued. “Isn’t it true that he won? Where is the lie? I would like to fix my previous [prediction] though, I’m going to swap RFK with [Republican Trump critic] Thomas Massie.”

    M.I.A. has received backlash for a number of controversial statements in recent years – from comparing InfoWars host Alex Jones’s falsehoods about the Sandy Hook shooting to celebrities “pushing” COVID-19 vaccines and suggesting the latter, too, should “pay for lying”. She then clarified her stance on COVID vaccines, saying she’s “not really” an anti-vaxxer.

    She released her new album ‘M.I.7’ last month, and announced alongside it a new clothing range that blocks 10G, the latest in her own Ohmni clothing brand.

    The post M.I.A. responds to Kid Cudi tour cancellation: “Do not gas light my words, that is the work of Satan” appeared first on NME.