Sheesh, it's been a crazy few weeks for Sri-Lankan pop star Maya Arulpragasm, or, as the rest of us know her, M.I.A.

FIRST, she released the ultra-violent, beat-you-over-the-head symbolic short film/music video for the song "Born Free" off her upcoming album, Maya. The uber-NSFW video depicts a SWAT team-like brigade invading the homes of, and eventually capturing, some redheads. Yes, redheads. They get rounded up, taken to the desert, and then things get quite ugly. The video set the blogosphere afire and even got banned from Youtube for a brief period before being re-posted with a disclaimer.  Regardless, the controversial video has gotten over 2 million views since posted in late April.

THEN, the New York Times' Lynn Hirschberg wrote this highly critical profile on M.I.A. highlighting, amongst other things, the disconnect between M.I.A.'s posh superstardom and her self-alleged, vehement support for the Tamil Tigers, a separatist organization in her conflict-rife nation of origin, Sri Lanka. Well, M.I.A. was understandably not too happy when the profile came out and posted this outraged tweet two days later.

"917.834.3158 CALL ME IF YOU WANNA TALK TO ME ABOUT THE N Y T TRUTH ISSUE, ill b taking calls all day bitches ;)" [The drama continues after the jump along with the aforementioned NSFW video!]

This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2010.