M.I.A.’s Uncensored New Video Includes 3-D Weapons, Parrots, Neon
M.I.A. has shared a self-directed, uncensored video for “Double Bubble Trouble,” the dubby cut from her 2013 LP, Matangi. In keeping with the rapper-singer’s typical style, it’s a politically charged clip, featuring lots of people making 3-D weapons.
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“What if you could make weapons like these in your own home, using what’s called a three-dimensional printer?” narrates a voices at the top of the lo-fi video. “This sounds like science fiction, but to some, it’s not so far-fetched.” M.I.A. drills home that point, showing various groups of individuals — some masked — showing off their weapons of choice. The hallucinatory neon clip-art visual style (which also includes monkeys, dogs, a parrot, and people making out) is a perfect match for the song’s synth squelches and frenetic beats.
M.I.A. tweeted a link to the video on Monday morning, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, controversy followed after the link appeared to have been taken down by her record label. “My label has my video , they havnt uploaded for 4 days > they wont let me upload > whats is the point? smh,” she tweeted, followed by a spree of fan retweets that expressed support of releasing the clip. But the matter now seems to have been straightened out. “MIA DBT VIDEO UNBLOCKED !!! @UMG THANKX,” she later wrote, with a link to the functioning video on her Youtube account.
Back in March, M.I.A. faced a potentially more costly controversy. After flipping the bird to the camera during her Super Bowl halftime show, she was slapped with a $16.6 million lawsuit from the NFL.