Rapper M.I.A. says she refused to fulfill Jay-Z’s sexist request upon signing to his label.
The “Paper Planes” artist — who was born Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam — recently took to Instagram Live to discuss the dissolution of her once-promising musical career, and called out a few famous people she felt contributed to her downfall.
One noteworthy person the “Bad Girls” rapper named was Jay-Z, who she says asked her to drastically change her appearance after she signed to his label Roc Nation in 2012.
“The first thing [Jay-Z] asked me to do was get plastic surgery,” M.I.A. said in a short clip posted by the Instagram account Livebitez a little over a week ago.
She then expressed her suspicion that people in the music industry may watch her Instagram Live and say that she’s merely “insecure” about her music career dying down and she’s only calling people out now to “massage her ego.”
“I’m not insecure because I would have got plastic surgery,” M.I.A. said. “So their argument of ‘Maya’s fucking insecure, that’s why she needs to fucking massage her ego,’ fails. It fails because you turn around and ask … What women do you know who hasn’t had plastic surgery around [Jay-Z]? All of them have. I’m the only one who didn’t, which already proves the fact it’s not insecurity.”
M.I.A. said if she was insecure she “would’ve done that 100 times over.”
M.I.A. joined Roc Nation in 2012 ahead of her fourth album, “Matangi.” She left in 2014.
Kevin Mazur via Getty Images
Although the 49-year-old British-Sri Lankan musician didn’t specify which procedure the “Empire State Of Mind” rapper asked her to do, in a full-length version of her Instagram Live video posted to YouTube, she listed a few procedures people in the music industry have suggested she get done.
“I’m not going to bleach my skin, no I’m not going to get a fucking nose job, no I’m not going to get fucking filler,” the Grammy-nominated musician said 54 minutes into the video. “Because I’m 100% content, happy and at peace with exactly how God designed it. That’s why.”
Elsewhere in the video, M.I.A. does say that musician Azealia Banks was the one who suggested she bleach her skin to be “accepted in the music world” because she’s too “dark skinned.”
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HuffPost has reached out to Jay-Z and Banks for comment but did not get an immediate response.
M.I.A.’s allegation about the “99 Problems” rapper came just weeks before he was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl in an amended lawsuit from October. On Sunday, the plaintiff, who filed as “Jane Doe,” revised her lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs to include the “Big Pimpin’” rapper. In the suit, the then-pre-teen alleges that during a 2000 house party after the MTV Video Music Awards, Jay-Z and Diddy drugged her and took turns raping her while an unnamed female celebrity watched.
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