Diplo Says M.I.A. Didn't Care About Her New Album

On what went wrong with MAYA: “I think she’s a really controversial artist and she’s one of the most important people doing music right now, because people expect a lot. And I think that the record was like—she didn’t care about it. I was in the studio with her, she didn’t write anything. The one good review is that, at least people—she’s on the defensive for the whole record, and that doesn’t sound very authentic. Me and Switch tried our best to be quality control of the record and she didn’t want that. She kind of went on her own way. I was like, Look, nobody in your crew—we were the only people she could trust, and our asses were on the line too. We got here because of working with people like her. We care about the way things sound, and when the people that she works with don’t, then it’s fucked up. She’s got a talent in every aspect. She’s got ideas bigger than any artist I’ve ever met and she’s someone to fuckin’ make that happen. All she has is a bunch of yes men around her and they kinda suck.”

On ever working with her again: “I burned like twenty bridges with her. I build my own bridges, it doesn’t matter. I’m honest. As soon as she comes to terms with what she does then we can work again. One of us has to be like, We fucked up, and then we can do it again.”

On the backlash: “I am surprised by it. She like, retired because she married a dude and she didn’t care about music. She only did it again because “Paper Planes” did blow up in the end. It gave her a second wind, but she didn’t have any hunger anymore. She already got a full table.”

On her future: “But besides that I think she’s amazing and she’ll put another record out that’s going to be fuckin’ sick because I think she needs to get grounded at some point.”

CORRECTION and APOLOGY: It didn’t make sense to us that Diplo would say M.I.A. had “no talent in any aspect,” but after listening to the recording of the phone interview repeatedly, it was our conclusion. It turns out that conclusion was wrong. What Diplo, who was speaking very quickly, actually said was that M.I.A., has “got” talent in every aspect, which makes a lot more sense to us. Apologies to both Diplo and to M.I.A. We will now perform 40 lashes upon ourselves in repentance.

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