M.I.A. treated audiences to a volley of bizarre stage banter during her set at San Francisco's Portola Festival yesterday.

“Before I knew this was a dance music festival, I wanted to come here and preach," the UK singer-songwriter and rapper born Maya Arulpragasam said during her headlining performance at the two-day electronic music festival. “That would be way too dangerous for the San Francisco micro-dosing crew.” 

Nonetheless, Arulpragasam peppered her set with perplexing political commentary. According to SFGATE reporter Dan Gentile, she shouted the names of both U.S. presidential nominees to mixed audience response–"and there's no one else," she sneered, apparently criticizing the U.S. two-party system–and compared herself to former San Francisco district attorney Kamala Harris.

"I've been canceled so many fucking times because of you guys," she said. "Before you canceled [Edward] Snowden, Maya got canceled. That was for the Americans, so I don’t want to hear it.”

Arulpragasam did not explicitly endorse one U.S. presidential candidate over the other during her set, but she announced her support of former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump last August.

Arulpragasam emerged in the mid-2000s with her mixtape "Piracy Funds Terrorism" with Diplo and her debut album Arular, both of which found critical acclaim for their sonically experimental, politically provocative style of pop. "Paper Planes," from 2007's Kala, became a major hit in the U.S. in 2008 after being featured in the films Pineapple Express and Slumdog Millionaire.

Arulpragasam debuted her Ohmni clothing line in June on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Infowars site, claiming her products can protect against 5G waves and "nanoparticles." Ohmni products were heavily advertised at Portola Festival, and the artist herself took the stage in an Ohmni jumpsuit and a red wig.

M.I.A.'s last album Mata was released in 2022.