Wednesday, June 23, 2010 2:29am ET by  

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M.I.A. on 'Born Free' criticism


Sri Lankan singer M.I.A. says she isn't upset about the negative reaction to 'Born Free', although she is baffled by the media's reaction to the music video, which shows violence against minority groups and has caused controversy since its release earlier this year in April.

"It was just interesting at the time, for me, to see how the internet works," she explained. "Because I tweeted (an alleged Sri Lankan execution video) a couple months before, and nobody really gave a s**t.

And when there's tomato ketchup and fake blood, people are like, 'Oh my God, this is shocking!' And it's like, 'It's ketchup!' (So) I think it's interesting how we react to fiction and how we react to realism on the internet."  She went on to add, "This is not some weird, crazy conspiracy theory, this is mainstream media. I wish I was talking about way more underground theories, but (I'm) not, this is just me digesting what I see in the mainstream."