M.I.A. is No Longer Headlining Afropunk London

When multicultural music festival Afropunk spread its wings and announced that it was expanding its reach from Brooklyn to London in 2016, it sparked outrage when it booked M.I.A. as its headliner. The reason for the backlash: M.I.A. had made critical comments regarding Black Lives Matter to the Evening Standard in an interview last April: "It’s interesting that in America the problem you’re allowed to talk about is Black Lives Matter. It’s not a new thing to me—it’s what Lauryn Hill was saying in the 1990s, or Public Enemy in the 1980s. Is Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar going to say Muslim Lives Matter? Or Syrian Lives Matter? Or this kid in Pakistan matters? That’s a more interesting question."

M.I.A. responded to her critics by saying she "wasn't doing Afropunk" on June 20; Afropunk responded saying that, yes, she was still scheduled to play the festival, and that her comments weren't necessarily detrimental to the movement or their mission in that the debate they inspired was "healthy." But now it looks like M.I.A. hasn't changed her tune since June 20, as Afropunk and M.I.A. have made the decision to part ways.