Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Marc Grimwade/WireImage, Kristy Sparow/Getty Images
She’s living up to her name. Kid Cudi fired M.I.A. as his opener for the rest of his North American tour after fans were upset by her political rants onstage. “M.I.A is no longer on this tour. I told my management to send a notice to her team before we started tour that I didnt want anything offensive at my shows, cuz I already knew what time it was, and I was assured things were understood,” Cudi confirmed in an Instagram Story. “After the last couple shows, I’ve been flooded with messages from fans that were upset by her rants. This, to me, is very disappointing and I wont have someone on my tour making offensive remarks that upsets my fanbase.” At a show this weekend in Dallas, M.I.A. claimed she was “canceled” for being a “brown Republican voter” despite not being an eligible voter in the U.S. She also made insensitive comments about undocumented people when talking about her song “Illegal”: “I can’t do ‘Illegal,’ though some of you could be in the audience.” Fans at the show were booing her as she kept trying to win back the audience by saying she was “illegal” as well.
At the Kid Cudi concert with MIA she started randomly started talking about how she’s a Republican & how at that concert there’s probably a bunch of illegals that she’s having to play too. People started booing her & quite a few left & asked for a refund.She ended her career. pic.twitter.com/nc9w4QpiD9
— Suzie rizzio (@Suzierizzo1) May 4, 2026
M.I.A. tried to clarify her comments two days later, explaining that her team did not get visas approved to travel with her. “I wrote borders and illygal and paper planes before you thought immigrant rights were cool. I’ve had thses battles by myself without the help of millions of fans backing me,” she posted on X on May 4. “I don’t need this virtue signal era to all of a sudden erase an entire life I’ve led. Jesus was an immigrant and a rebel. I have no appolgy for the judgemental the wicked and the ignorent, for those are spirits that we must over come in our lives and in this world.” The Rebel Ragers Tour began on April 28; there is no replacement for M.I.A.’s remaining dates, leaving Big Boi as the only opener playing all of the stops scheduled for the rest of the tour.
Sign up for the Vulture Daily
An entertainment newsletter for the pop-culture obsessed.
Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice
Related
