Rapper Kid Cudi has removed British artist M.I.A. from his tour on Monday following remarks she made during the Rebel Ragers Tour that quickly went viral.
What did M.I.A. say?
The “Paper Planes” artist was performing as an opening act on the tour over the weekend when she made remarks about immigration.
At one point, she said, “I’ve been canceled for many reasons. I never thought I would be canceled for being a brown Republican voter.”
In another viral clip, she can be heard saying, “We can’t perform [my song] Illegal, though some of you could be in the audience.”
After the crowd began to boo, she responded, “All right, I’m illegal. Half of my team are not here because they didn’t get the visa, OK? I want you to know that. All right? So don’t listen to what the bots say on the internet.”
Kid Cudi reacts
On Monday, Kid Cudi addressed the situation in a statement shared to his Instagram Story.
“M.I.A. is no longer on this tour,” he wrote. “I told my management to send a notice to her team before we started tour that I didn’t want anything offensive at my shows, cuz I already knew what time it was, and I was assured things were understood.
“After the last couple shows, I’ve been flooded with messages from fans that were upset by her rants. This, to me, is very disappointing and I wont have someone on my tour making offensive remarks that upsets my fanbase.”
M.I.A. responds
Following Cudi’s post, M.I.A. defended herself in a statement.
She wrote, “I wrote illygal on the Maya LP a song from 2010. I started this intro to the song with the statement saying I’m illygal, and I said my team hasn’t gotten visas yet. Then played a song that had lyrics saying “F–k the law”, which I still believe, if the law is unjust f–k it.”
“Do not gas light my words. That is the work of satan. I wrote ‘borders’ and ‘illygal’ and ‘paper planes’ before you thought immigrant rights were cool. I’ve had thses 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.”
“Jesus was an immigrant and a rebel. I have no appolgy for the judgemental the wicked and the ignorent, for those are spirits that we must over come in our lives and in this world. Jesus returns to lead the world justly because there is injustice in this world. Im proud of those who fight for it everyday. God bless you. Go listen to m.i.7.,” she concluded, referring to her Christian faith-inspired new album released last month.
She also responded to a user on X (formerly Twitter) who asked if she voted for Donald Trump, writing, “Don’t be an agent of division, I can’t vote in the US, and 48% of Latin community voted trump. So are you going to hate them all?”
