M.I.A., as you may know, is one of the “bad girls.” That’s not editorial observation—that’s a self-imposed description. She’s the sort of girl your mom calls “trouble.” She makes Ke$ha get all awkward and nervous at parties. One time, a music journalist wrote a piece about her that she didn’t like, so she tweeted the journalist’s phone number to her fans and told them to tell her how they felt (which they did). And, of course, she flipped off America while performing alongside Madonna at last year’s Super Bowl halftime show. But she’s been cheering up a little lately, and that’s making her label nervous—so much that they’re delaying the release of her new album. Oh, brother. Leave it to The Man to hold off on releasing good music because it’s not angsty enough or whatever. As M.I.A. told Australia’s Gold Coast, “At the moment, I’ve been told it’s too positive …It’s like ‘We just built you up as the public enemy No. 1 and now you’re coming out with all this positive stuff.’ So we’re having a bit of an issue at the label.” First Eminem. Now M.I.A. They should make a band and tour children’s birthday parties. While the old M.I.A. probably would have stonewalled her label’s advice, the new one is mulling it over. “That’s the point of being positive,” she told Gold Coast …
