She's back, but is it worth it?

Yes, it would seem Mathangi Arulpragasam has gone back on her slightly melodramatic word that she would never again perform after a gig at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee. While we for one highly respect M.I.A., her decision to announce to the industry and the world that she would never create music and perform again - which is fine, if that's what she wants - and its redundancy following the news that she is to begin recording again purely because a song from her second album Kala is a top 5 hit in the USA due to it being used in a movie commercial, has slightly dented any admiration we previously had for her.

M.I.A. has always struck us as a genuine, bona fide I-don't-give-a-fuck-honestly artist; losers like Johnny Borrell who proclaim to be revolutionary and "anti-establishment" just make us giggle, but M.I.A.'s apparent determination to get her clearly strong views on the state of politics and life in her home country of Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom across to the masses via intelligent yet accessible - okay, maybe not that accessible - music always struck us as the real thing. Yeah, this girl is the real thing.

Then she makes a career decision purely based on commercial gains?

Yeah, we're not gonna say we wouldn't do it - because we clearly would - but this seems to go against everything M.I.A. has ever stood for. We're not complaining that she is going back into the studio; we are already eagerly anticipating album #3, but we have a feeling that we won't be able to shake the bad taste left in our mouth when we remember why M.I.A. recorded it.