Anyone else find M.I.A.s album Arular rather offensive. She's openly supporting the LTTE/Tamil Tigers, who are a terrorist organisation in Sri Lanka. They have been responsible for suicide bombings. If you look at her lyrics she refers to LTTE snipers:
"Growin up, Brewin Up
Guerilla gettin trained up
look out look out
From over the Rooftop"
"Competition coming up now
Load up,
Aim,
Fire Fire,
Pop"
"Row Da Boat - Straight to da ocean
Give 'im a run - A run at his own game" (refers to the LTTE's sea fighters (Sri Lanka is an island))
Her songs are peppered with this stuff, I find it pretty offensive. Apparently her father was an active member of PLOT, a division of the LTTE, and he was killed by the Sri Lankan government, or is "Missing In Action".
Interesting comment. Perhaps she's not neccissarily trying to make terrorism sound cool, but trying to give us a picture of what the warzone in a 3rd world country is like. After all there are quite a few famous artists that do this from Bob Marley, to the Clash, to Public Enemy. Plus if you look at M.I.A.'s history she's been trying to make documentary films of her home country. So maybe she's trying to sum up what she sees through the camera, and what people are saying, not neccissarily what she's saying.