M.I.A.'s new video will make you feel like hugging a redheaded kid
Making the whole Erykah Badu-strips-in-Dealey Plaza controversy look sort of ridiculous, M.I.A. debuted the video for her new single “Born Free” today—a nearly nine-minute mini-movie that’s already been pulled from YouTube in the U.S. and garnered an awful lot of free publicity. If you haven’t seen it yet, be aware that it’s a grim, violent little piece, and definitely not safe for work, unless you work in a child-torturing factory. Matching the relentlessly bleak beat of the song—lifted from Suicide’s “Ghost Rider”—the video follows a group of U.S. soldiers as they take part in what appears to be a ginger genocide, rousting redheaded kids out of their homes and forcing them to run across a minefield. It’s gory and most likely unnerving for those not completely deadened to violence, so don’t say we didn’t warn you.