*On teh Internets*

Successful musicians have a lot in common with professional athletes; they live and die by public perception. A long, prosperous career is something of a miracle.

Just to make it to the big show is to surmount frightening odds. History is littered with one-hit wonders and first round draft picks who never quite found their stroke. Why did Guns-N-Roses only produce one good album? Why didn’t Ricky Williams ever shine as a pro quarterback? To be the real deal—- Jordan sinking the the buzzer beater, Beckham nailing the set piece, Usher bringing an audience to tears—-this is why we worship heroes. They’re one in a billion, made from different stuff than us.

British performer M.I.A (real name Maya Arulpragasam) was to treated to a real stinger today when this week’s installment of The New York Times Magazine went live. Not given to hero worship, writer Lynn Hirschberg, in her 8,5000 word profile, either fired the opening salvo in an attempted career assassination, or she penned the kind of press that acknowledges a new superstar has reached the pantheon.

Traveling with the artist to L.A., New York and London as she wrapped up work on her most recent, album Hirschberg unpacks M.I.A.’s craft (a penchant for recombination), her collaborative nature (manipulating bulldozer) and perhaps most damning, her haphazard adherence to revolutionary principles regarding the Sri Lankan civil war. It’s hard not to take sides, but by most accounts, Hirschberg’s piece was an ego thrashing. What is M.I.A made of?

Even as a fan of M.I.A, I was impressed by Hirschberg’s craft and her attention to detail. Weaving together a narrative with rich details, sounds and colors, I felt as though I was bumping through LA gridlock or walking the streets of London on a cold, clammy day. When she spoke to people who know Maya, she gathered opinions that were far-ranging, authentic and insightful. Furthermore, with NY Times bona fides, Hirschberg had access to Interscope Records CEO, Jimmy Iovine, Maya’s old boyfriend, Diplo, and scores of others.

While Maya might bristle at the treatment, reportedly tweeting Hirschberg’s cell # to her 100,000-strong cadre of followers), with so many voices in the story, it’s hard to sympathize if she feels she was mis-characterized.

I’ve known M.I.A’s music almost since the day she hit the scene. I was a starry-eyed intern at the TRACE Magazine headquarters in SoHo, when she first came across my radar with her instant hit ‘Galang.’ The beat escapes in heavy clumps as M.I.A leers into the camera with a look that is both uninterested and seductive, as she sashays with her genre-bending personal style. This is truly the stuff that superstars are made of, I thought.

At a time when UK grimesters KANO, Wiley and Lady Sovereign made their initial, moody incursion into the New York music scene, ‘Galang’ captured the gush of electricity, the sweaty heat and utter naïvete of my first summer in New York. I had been to all of their shows at The Knitting Factory, but to hear M.I.A. was something truly unique.

Time has a way of being be so cruel to our heroes. On the road to superstardom, a serious injury, a bad album or a well-publicized scandal, can run a promising career off the rails. That said, the only thing the media loves more than to crown a king is to destroy an icon. The first half of Michael Jackson’s life was performing for enthralled crowds, the latter half spent performing for a gobsmacked press.

So is this M.I.A’s moment of truth? The Albums Arular and Kala are classics. I don’t own either (I’ll admit I don’t buy a lot of music these days), but they have songs such as ‘Paper Planes,’ ‘Bucky Done Gun’ and ‘Sunshowers’ that are timeless.

As Hirschberg describes in her story, the single for ‘Born Free’ came with a made-to-be-banned viral video. When the nine minute minimovie came out, I thought it was an asinine companion to mediocre song. For all of Maya’s bravado, political posturing and color, I was seriously underwhelmed. With so many talented musicians, and an epidemically fractured attention span, it doesn’t take much more than an over-hyped and under-delivering single to trigger an avalanche. Good luck climbing out once you’re buried.

Perhaps M.I.A the artist had pulled the proverbial hamstring. After all, it’s been five years in the spotlight. Five years is a long time. Five years ago I sprinted from work to Rumsey Playfield just to catch of glimpse of Maya’s elbow as she performed at Central Park Summer stage. In those five years, I’ve matured drastically, and the thoughts I expressed in term papers, conversations and (errant blog posts about relationships) have all changed to reflect a wealth of new experiences.

We expect our favorite athletes to keep getting better over time, even as their bodies age. Rightly or wrongly, we expect musicians to have the same fire in the gut at 35 or 40 they had a 25. They are, after all, superheroes, right? Who cares what they may or may not have learned for life under the gun.

I can’t help but wonder if Hirschberg’s takedown of will bring better from M.I.A. or signal the decline of a career that promised so much and delivered less. Can she bounce back stronger on her fourth album. What tricks does she still have up her sleeve? Her reaction to the story seems petty and short-sighted, but she had to answer back with something. Only time will tell.

I’d love to know what you think. Leave a comment. Does M.I.A. have superstardom in her DNA or is she, sadly, just another one of us?