Words matter. These are the best M.I.A. Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I have no ties to my dad. I had no communications with him; it didn’t shape who I am or anything like that. I’m actually a product of my mom.
My dad grew up in a mud hut and studied by candlelight. He was 14 when he got a scholarship to Russia. He was super clever – the cleverest person. He landed in 5ft of snow, and was alone at 14, studying science and engineering. He didn’t have a bed, and he slept on a table.
It is a coincidence that Mathangi is the Goddess of Music and the spoken word, which can be rap.
My giving birth was nothing when I think about all the people in Sri Lanka that have to give birth in a concentration camp.
Versace designs have always been bootlegged. Now it’s Versace bootlegging the bootleg for the bootleggers to bootleg the bootleg.
When I started off in England, HMV or Tower Records would come to meetings and be, like, ‘We just don’t know what this genre is.’ I don’t really fit in between Rihanna and Beyonce.
I am the bridge between the East and the West. I don’t want to abandon one for the other.
My uncle was the first brown person to have a market stall on Petticoat Lane in the 1960s. He worked his way up from the street. He was homeless, but eventually he got a car so he could sell from the boot. And by the 1980s, he was a millionaire wholesaling to companies like Topshop. So in a way, fashion put me in England.
Before the Greeks were the Tamils. The Tamils are one of the oldest civilizations that’s still surviving.
In New York, everyone’s really neurotic and talks about themselves all the time.
Basically, when I went to school in Sri Lanka from age five onward, the classes there were sometimes sorted into a hierarchy of your skin tone. So the fairer-skinned kids sat at the front row, and the darker-skinned kids sat at the back by the poor ones who played out in the street all day long.
Madonna did amazing songs. She had an amazing sense of style, without a stylist. And she was flawed, and sometimes she admitted it. I’ll fight the fight for Madonna. I think she should send me some chocolates or something to thank me.
I was shot at for being a Tamil in Sri Lanka, and then, everyone was calling me a Paki in London, and I’m not even Pakistani.
My record label always says you shouldn’t talk about money because it makes people extremely uncomfortable. Refugees can’t talk about money. Rappers can talk about money; refugees can’t talk about money.
Matangi’s mantra is aim, which is MIA backwards. She fights for freedom of speech and stands for truth, and lives in the ghetto because her dad was the first person in Hindu mythology who came from the ‘hood, but had gained enlightenment through not being a Brahmin.
I don’t understand why people make me want to make music that’s a join-the-dots thing by numbers. I find it really difficult when people say, ‘Aw, you should have made a really big hip hop record, that would have been really good for you’ or, ‘You should have made a song like Lily Allen, that would have been so great.’
Human beings around the world have to be taught to go, ‘Tamil equals Tamil civilians first, and the Tamil Tiger is a separate thing.’ And both of those groups are different. It’s like a square and a circle.
I don’t consider myself a musician. I’m an artist.
Me, it was always about being able to bounce around to where I wanna be. Like, with ‘Arular,’ people always say it’s so political, but I think 50 per cent of the album is not very political at all. It’s just really a shouty, shouty girl thing.
I feel like a mirror reflecting back everyone’s perception of me.
When I first came out, I was a film student, and my mom sewed clothes. I was already doing a million things then, whatever it took to survive. If I had to braid someone’s hair to get one pound for my lunch money, that’s what I did.
I don’t like the idea of spirituality done the way it’s done. The only way I could understand it was through creativity, not by going to an Ashram, or finding a guru or joining a temple. I made work out of it.
My father had no influence on my political beliefs, and to imply otherwise is wrong and irresponsible.
I don’t intentionally go: ‘Ooh, what is provocative,’ and try to do that. I just do stuff, and people go: ‘Ooh, that’s provocative.’
I remember taking my demo to every dance person in London. People were like, ‘We don’t know what this is!’ The first people to champion me were a club in Manchester.
As an artist, you want to play around with mediums and see if you can get the point across in different way.
It’s interesting, because I named my first album after my dad because I wanted to find him. My second album was named after my mom because I felt like I learned all my creative talents I learned from her. All the survival stuff, too. And then the next album is ‘Maya,’ which is not my real name. It’s fake.
Manhattan seems pretty developed, you know what I mean? Like, it has peaked in culture.
Tamils all over the world have a sense of belonging to the world itself, but our ancient roots come from India. I would like to explore India. I will keep coming back. This is the closest I can get to home.
In India, you see the way they embrace color in the culture – it’s very celebratory of the existence of color. There’s no rule of what color belongs together or doesn’t belong together. They’re not precious about it. It’s very full-on.
The first 10 years of my life, I lived as ‘Matangi.’ When I came to England in ’86, my first week of school was terrible because I would put my hand up to answer things, and no one would choose me because they couldn’t say my name. My auntie came from Europe to visit us, and she was like, ‘Just call yourself something else.’
I feel like people either love me or hate me, which is good, because that was the point of what I do. The point of M.I.A. is to be – it’s either to be loved or hated. At least you evoke that much of a strong opinion about music.
You have to constantly redefine who you are.
I don’t think immigrants are that threatening to society at all. They’re just happy they’ve survived some war somewhere.
In my head, I actually think my songs are pop songs. I think, ‘Damn, that’s a pop song!’ I can practice in front of the mirror with my hairbrush for as long as I want to. But when it finally comes out, it sounds avant-garde to people.
