M.I.A. calls about Lady Gaga

M.I.A. is known for her outspoken views, and in a new interview with British music magazine NME, the MC says she’s got a bone to pick with some of the latest pop culture trends, namely Lady Gaga and “Twilight.”

M.I.A., who is releasing her follow-up to 2007’s Kala later this year, took issue with the fact that some people compare her eclectic style to Lady Gaga’s. In the interview, which appears in the print version of the magazine but has been transcribed by Oh Know They Didn’t, accused Gaga of being a “mimic” rather than making genuinely strange music.

“[T]here’s Lady Gaga — people say we’re similar, that we both mix all these things in the pot and spit them out differently, but she spits it out exactly the same!” M.I.A. said. “None of her music’s reflective of how weird she wants to be or thinks she is. She models herself on Grace Jones and Madonna, but the music sounds like 20-year-old Ibiza music, you know? She’s not progressive, but she’s a good mimic. She sounds more like me than I f—ing do!

“That’s a talent and she’s got a great team behind her, but she’s the industry last’s stab at making itself important, saying, ‘You need our money behind you, the endorsements, the stadiums,’ ” she said. “Respect to her, she’s keeping a hundred thousand people in work.”