M.I.A. on Letterman

M.I.A aka Maya Arulpragasam paid a return visit to the late show with David Letterman to promote her recently released, third studio album titled ‘Maya’ via Interscope Records.  Fans were anxiously waiting for the British Tamil artist to perform the official single ‘XXXO’ which features legendry American rap icon Jay Z in the remix version. Instead M.I.A decided she wanted to perform ‘Born Free’, a track which was removed from Youtube.com as the video contained disturbing scenes of nudity, extreme violence and portrayed acts of genocide.

Joining MIA on stage were several M.I.A look-alikes, which must have left audiences baffled as her unique style and the choice of song were not the regular on the very popular TV show. If you listen very carefully to the video clip above, you manage to hear a very faint ‘what the hell was that’ coming from the audience after the performance! David Letterman also throws in a ‘seriously, happy Halloween’ comment, probably as he never expected that on his show!

Some may say Maya is selling out and being hypocritical by performing on the show, especially after her recent outburst against pop star Lady Gaga who she claimed was commercialised. By MIA not performing the commercially safe ‘XXXO’ and instead the highly controversial ‘Born Free’ we feel the rapper has managed to make a powerful statement by maintaining her uniqueness and getting ‘Born free’ into the living rooms of a few more million American households in the process!

MAYA by M.I.A is now available on itunes and other digital retailers.