YN discusses M.I.A. and her place in hip-hop. He purposely avoids her Lady Gaga diss… Interesting.

YN Editorial: Who’s That Girl?:

Don’t know much about M.I.A. Truthfully, I’ve been avoiding her music like a plague for the past few years. Even the “Paper Planes”/”Swagger Like Us” movement didn’t pull me in. I really don’t know why. I mean, my music taste can be broad at times. Plus all the critics I know dig her. I mean she did win the 2009 Best Female Hip-Hop Artist at the BET Awards. Owww.

Still the hot talk yesterday was ole girl and her controversial new video so I had to see what’s what. And yup, a whole lot of violence is goin’ on up top. The overall script: Attack of the redheads. A bunch of Sheamus lookalikes get touched. A bootleg Justin Bieber gets bucked—rock-a-bye baby—New Jack City style. This ain’t no Ice-T Surviving The Game shit either. It’s dark, artsy and scary. Oops, there goes a flying hand. Shit, I’m waiting for Kanye to take a break from recording in Don Ho land just so he can post it. All caps everything. And don’t forget the exclamation points!!!!

Still lost in the mini-film is the actual music. You know, this is supposed to be about Maya’s first single from a new album and I can barely notice it. Except for the occasional, “I was booorrrnnn. Freee!” Catchy. But I wanted to hear more. So I just downloaded the song and you know what, it’s pretty good. I mean I’m probably not gonna bump it as much as all the new rap that just dropped (Today was a good day for traffic!) but I’ll keep it in my New Sh*t playlist. For now. Listen up!

Maybe if Minaj doesn’t float your boat, we should open our hearts and find a place for our Sri Lankan sister in the hip-hop universe. I know I miss MC Lyte as much as anyone and Roxanne Shante when she was still honest. Hey, Latifah’s in Hollywood and she ain’t comin’ back. Lauryn Hill is not walkin’ through that door! It might just be OK to give M.I.A. a chance. That’s all I am saying. No justice. No peace.

“I don’t wanna talk about money, ’cause I got it
And I don’t wanna talk about hoochies, ‘cos I been it
And I don’t wanna be that fake, but you can do it.”

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