M.I.A. has torn into her former collaborator and ex-boyfriend Diplo in a fiery Instagram post, accusing him of “distorting history” with stories of how he discovered her, and claiming that he used her career to help build his own.
The two met at Fabric nightclub in London in 2003, and dated for the next five years, while working together on her Piracy Funds Terrorism mixtape, as well as singles including ‘Bucky Done Gun‘ and ‘Paper Planes‘.
Accompanied by a video of an interview in which he appeared to take credit for “discovering” M.I.A. at the start of her career, the rapper took aim at her ex, accusing him of cheating on her, and even taking credit for songs that weren’t his.
“I just want to clear this up,” she said, explaining that Diplo first came to her attention when she heard one of his early tracks, then bought a ticket to see him DJing at Fabric. She wrote that she approached him off her own bat at the club, saying:
No one put me on the list! Nobody paid for it! I approached him and gave him my record! There was no label no [A&R], no channels. A handful of people believed in me, then when I got a deal , they turned on me. This was why I forged my own path and style and genre. I didn’t want anyone to say they made me! To this day so many people have made careers off me and the same people distort history destroy the story because of my politics, which he played a part in cementing.
Diplo has been critical of M.I.A. in the past, accusing her at one point of “glamorising” terrorism and knowing “zero” about politics after a now-infamous piece on her in the New York Times. She hit back, saying:
During this time when 400,000 Tamil were getting bombed to death, he used to have a dart board of my face on his rider. Jus sayin’. He [texted] me “you’re walking backwards into a brick wall” when the NYT article came out. While I was defending privacy laws with a newborn baby like it’s me against the world. No one came to my shows during this time because of that article and racist memes mad decent were spreading through hipsters. I let him cash in on the sound because I had no choice. I felt it was important to defend freedom of speech, even for American people and couldn’t play the game.
She also claimed to have been the driving force behind Diplo’s current group, the globe-bestriding, Justin Bieber-collaborating Major Lazer, saying:
Everyone involved in Major Lazer now came together through me. I made ‘Boyz’ in Jamaica and Trinidad. I took Switch there, carried beers up the mountain everyday. Wes (Diplo) wasn’t there because he was cheating on me in Brazil at the time. He turned up a year later and networked in JA saying he produced ‘Boyz’ coz the song blew in Jamaica. Walshy was the director’s roommate and Chris was my day to day in Trinidad. It’s important you don’t see me as a lil’ thing Diplo discovered because I’m a brown woman , and this is the first story of a brown female musician who smashed it for the first time. That didn’t happen because I accidentally walked passed Diplo. Ta! This is literally 1% of the story!
Diplo responded to his ex’s Tweet earlier today and appeared to take the high road, saying “not sure where your grudge comes from, I’m thankful for you believing in me. I wouldn’t have taken music seriously if it wasn’t for you.”
not sure where your grudge comes from Im thankful for you believing in me. I wouldn’t have taken music seriously if it wasn’t for you #facts
— diplo (@diplo) August 26, 2017
He also retweeted the legendary DJ Arthur Baker, who said “hey man I thought I discovered you in the basement of my London restaurant Harlem?”
Facts https://t.co/CrhUWWvSRV
— diplo (@diplo) August 27, 2017
With all due respect to Taylor and Katy, THIS is some truly spicy beef.
