What is a radical? It's the question of M.I.A.'s vexing career

Analysis Music What is a radical? It's the question of M.I.A.'s vexing career Fans who danced to "Paper Planes" might hardly recognize the conspiracy-touting artist before them today — but in a certain way, she's the same button-pusher as ever May 9, 20265:00 AM ET Sheldon Pearce M.I.A. performs at the Germania Insurance Amphitheater in Austin, Texas, on May 1. A day later, in Dallas, she gave a performance that got her fired from her tour with Kid Cudi. Rick Kern/Getty Images North America hide caption toggle caption Rick Kern/Getty Images North America In journals from 1838, the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a self-reprimand challenging his personal understanding of critical discourse: "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted." Nearly 200 years into the future, that mistake has seemingly become the default mode of debate in the town squares of social media and the celebrity complex, as well as the particular cross born by the oft-controversial, lately embattled British musician M.I.A. On Monday, the 50-year-old rapper and singer was officially booted from Kid Cudi's Rebel Ragers Tour, on which she'd been an opening act. The dismissal followed her May 2 performance on the tour's Dallas stop, where fans booed comments she made onstage — first about having been "canceled" for supporting Republicans, and then a more cryptic line: "We can't do 'Illygirl,'" she said, referring to her 2010 track that played on the word "illegal" to tell a loaded immigration tale, "because some of you could be in the audience." When the crowd voiced its disapproval, she clarified: "I am illegal. Half of my team are not here because they didn't get the visa, OK? Don't listen to what the bots say on the internet. Once you're this, you're always that. ... We should be above politics." Sponsor Message As a refugee of Sri Lanka's civil war, who has had her own struggles obtaining a U.S. visa, M.I.A. seemed to be clumsily com...