M.I.A. has hit back after Kid Cudi abruptly removed her from his Rebel Ragers Tour, with the rapper saying he’d been inundated with fan complaints about “offensive remarks” she is accused of making during the opening dates.
On stage, she hinted that performing Illygirl wasn’t an option, telling the crowd: “I can’t do Illygirl — let’s just say some of you out there might not love that choice.”
She then addressed the backlash she’s faced over her politics, adding: “I’ve been cancelled for all kinds of things, but I never thought it would happen because I’m a brown Republican voter.”
Cudi later explained why he stepped in, saying he’d already asked his team to give M.I.A.’s camp a heads-up before the tour began due to her history of sparking debate.
He called the situation “really disappointing,” but added that he wasn’t willing to keep an opener who made remarks that left his fans uncomfortable, saying: “I can’t have someone on my tour upsetting the people who come to see me.”
Reacting to clips from the Dallas show on May 2 on X/Twitter, M.I.A. insisted her choice to tease Illygirl — a track she wrote for her 2010 album Maya — was deliberate, explaining she used the intro to highlight that her team “hasn’t gotten visas yet.”
She added that she followed it with a song containing the line “F*** THE LAW,” saying she still stands by the message “if the law is unjust.”
M.I.A. warned critics not to twist her meaning, writing: “Do not gas light my words. That is the work of Satan.”
She went on to argue that her catalogue has tackled immigration and justice for years, long before those topics became mainstream, saying she fought those battles “by myself without the help of millions of fans backing me.”
Her posts then moved into faith and morality, saying: “Jesus was an immigrant and a rebel” and that she had “no apology for the judgemental… the wicked and the ignorant,” adding that those are “spirits we must overcome.”
When a user referenced her past support for Donald Trump, she pushed back, saying she cannot vote in the US and urging people not to “be an agent of division,” arguing that unity is needed to improve the country.
She also circled back to her pre-election support for Donald Trump, saying people were quick to believe “tarot readers” and “witches” yet refused to take her tweet predicting his win at face value.
M.I.A. cast that moment as intuition rather than endorsement, calling it a sign of her “anointing” and claiming she’s often ahead of the curve.
She penned: “Maybe that’s my anointing, my gift, my true ability to guide you to what is next, that’s why as an artist I get copied, like I’ve always said what will happen.”
She added: “Isn’t it true that he won? Where is the lie? I would like to fix my previous [prediction] though, I’m going to swap RFK with [Republican Trump critic] Thomas Massie.”
