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M.I.A.'s controversial new video is AWOL.
The avant-garde hip-hopper's music video, "Born Free," which premiered on her Web site Monday, has been banned from YouTube for its graphic violence.
The 10-minute video, directed by Romain Gavras, follows a SWAT-like team as it rounds up a band of redheads from a housing project and proceeds to kill them one by one.
The most graphic scenes include a young boy getting shot in the head -- reminiscent of Eddie Adams' Pultizer Prize-winning photo of a suspected Viet Cong leader's street side execution -- and one prisoner getting blown to pieces in slow motion by a bomb.
M.I.A. took to Twitter to rage against her label -- Universal Music Group -- for its decision to pull the video from YouTube.
"F--- UMG WHO WONT SHOW IT ON YOUTUBE!" the British musician tweeted. "FOR THE U.S >>>>>>WATCH HERE http://miauk.com/"
The independent music Web site Pitchfork media allowed M.I.A. to take over their twitter Monday to rail against the establishment. Her last tweet before relinquishing the feed was, "P4KTWITTERTAKEOVA M.I.A AYAMMAYA CONNECTED TO THE GOOGLE CONNECTED TO THE GOVERNMENT _IVVVVI____SIGNIN OFF."
The video shows a bus filled with redheads rolling up to an apartment building behind an armored vehicle. A slew of black-clad men run through an apartment building -- against the backdrop of an epic drum solo -- beating various men to a pulp as an old man smokes crack and an overweight couple copulates. The team finally captures their last redhead - in a sea of expletives - and takes their haul to the desert.
The redheads are told to run out into the sunset as the guards stand by and watch. When they refuse, one guard shoots a child in the head. The prisoners proceed to run but are picked off by strategically placed bombs.
M.I.A. is no stranger to political activism, being the daughter of a Tamil revolutionary who sought the creation of an independent state in Sri Lanka.
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/ar...OPULL_BRF.html
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