Mia
I invite you to a symposium, an emporium, from the imaginarium of your coarsest dreams
I invite you to glance at the remains of my human brain on the cranial CT scanner after they lobotomized all the shit they had warned me about letting go of, time and time again
If you sift through them, through these remains, you may find the lost towers, the alcohol wet-a-thons, the deformities and…. Reflections, musings, solid thoughts concerning MIA
MIA
The woman who sang “no funny business”
She’s “got more records than the KGB”
And she calls her record label after her birth-name… Maya Arulpragasam…
Rambunctious, forever packing heat, (gunslinger) pow-pow, whether 3D printed or illegally acquired
Colourful, and bright, smart and suave, refined in the roughest possible way …
A technicolour dream without Joseph’s coat
Her browns turn into Blacks – and there’s a missed heartbeat you don’t see coming when she asserts, “borders, what’s up with that?”
She directs her videos, declaring herself to be a top dog, insisting she doesn’t speak English, in English
MIA
You will find her in the deceased, lasered shavings of my left brain, with small chunks of it on some Neuro-Surgeon’s apron- as the machines needed the careful guidance of a clumsy specialist without a bedside manner

It’s my fault. I was too eager to know her, and the Law had to take steps
I was given a choice
Either imprisonment, or lobotomy
Well, I wasn’t interested in the texture of some prisoner’s tossed salad

Let me take you back to the start…
It was the year 2018, and the site was the Berlin Spoken Word
That was the first time I ever stood in front of people and spoke about MIA
I kept the notes
I’ll share what I shared with my fellow writers, on the 29th of March, when Berlin looked like it could house warmer hearts again

“Hi… my name is Mr. President. Or Ncube to you young’uns
I’m here to talk about MIA, Miss “3rd World Democracy”
I like people with an attitude problem. I think that’s why I love actors. Some have a few screws missing and I like it just fine. You need to be a little mad and care about people a tiny, eensy-weensy bit— only a little… if it’s too much, they will tell you you’re suffocating them – and move back with their Exes

MIA is a badass person
And I want to know where I can go to find her
Can someone tell me
How do I go about getting her to star in my motion picture
Whose palm do I have to grease
Who do I have to sleep with? Her friend? Ok

She would make a sophisticated villain, who gets away with it all- in my motion picture
A scarlet with a nasty secret
A heartbreaker with a shotgun
A bandit after my heart
She would also serve as a Creative Director
She would get a back-end deal that gives her 6.5% of the film’s gross, complete with 5% of the Foreign Sales Rights
She would be credited as a Producer, an Actress, and just for the hell of it, for laughs, as a Muse. My Muse.
MIA
“Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well”
M.I.A

She might turn out to be an absolute bitch
Someone you can’t work with or get along with, or dislike the look of once they start disagreeing with you – because you can see how disgusted they really are with you
Her music might end up annoying you to the point of destruction
She might just believe herself to be as great as she is- Which might just make her insufferable

She might prefer Scorsese over Ava DuVernay, Tarantino over Lynne Ramsay, or Maya Angelou over Angela Davis
She might have nothing to say for herself
She might like locking herself in her trailer, reading the Iliad with no intention of ever talking to anyone about it
She might keep her talent, her goodness, her light, her blinding light, all to herself
She might prefer to not talk unless she is spoken to, or talk in a tone so low, you have to constantly ask her to repeat herself

She might have a problem with the Jews, the Zulus, the Palestinians, the Eskimos and the Ethiopians of the world… any group that believes they are the shit. Any group that believes they are chosen. Unless there’s a Terror faction in them. Then she’s all over them
Diplo, the hotshot producer, claimed he told her at the beginning of the record, “Maya” not to bring politics into it. He told her not to glamourize it. “It’s not cool”, he said. “But she totally did… And then the record sucked.”

MIA
The name of a film of mine

M.I.A

(Missing In Action)

“Sometimes I feel like a mark on the wall. I’m scared someone might come and erase me by accident”
The character I want her to play says that

Together, MIA and I will evoke the spirit of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” by Anthony Mingella. We will infuse the story with a searing empathy, and everyone will hate us for it. They will tell us we can’t appropriate the trials and tribulations of Black Mormons
But at least we will have something to unite us

MIA.
I watched her videos on repeat….
Borders, Bring the Noize, Double Bubble Trouble, Bad Heartless Girls, POWA and Matahdatah Scroll 01 Broader than a Border
She makes Brown and Black people shine in the sunlight

MIA
Missing in action because she’s in my sheets, looking bemused, wearing a look that says, ‘I have no idea how I got here- but now that I am here- I like it.’
Or she might flatter and deflate me all at same time by gazing into my eyes dreamily, sighing and saying… ‘thank you Dr. Knockabouts for the penis injection. It was exquisite. However, I still maintain that you men are pricks’
MIA
You are whom we shouldn’t trust because yours is a message that undermines ours of anti-terrorism
Or so they say
Well, I say, say, say, unto thee-
Go into movies, MIA, go into movies, and fuck up the world
It doesn’t know you

Besides, it’s got it coming”

…….

In front of all those witnesses at the Berlin Spoken Word, I confessed to digging her, and I should have known that I was done for. The motherf-ers snitched on me. Each and every one of them told the authorities how f-ing awesome I declared she was, and how disturbing they found it
Lobotomy or imprisonment…
I chose lobotomy.