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It could be the sort of declining grip of the American MTV-nation culture-the fact that MTV doesn't play so much music anymore.

M.I.A.

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M.I.A.
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: July 18
Activist
Actor
Composer
Fashion Designer
Model
Music Video Director
Musician
Painter
Photographer
Rapper
Record Producer
Singer-Songwriter
Ventura County
California
Mathangi Arulpragasam
Maya Arulpragasam
Music
Nation
Play
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Much
Nations
American
Fact
Culture
Declining
Facts
Grip
Doesn
Anymore

More quotes by M.I.A.

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Everything I think seems to be controversial, so I feel like I need to just go away for a second and put it all down on paper until the storm passes.
M.I.A.
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I dont support terrorism and never have. As a Sri Lankan that fled war and bombings, my music is the voice of the civilian refugee.
M.I.A.
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Besides, isn't it more exciting when you don't have permission?
M.I.A.
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By the time it came to the 90s, the late 90s, being a businessman was the beacon to uphold. We've been having the concept of the best rapper equals the best businessman.
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I think people were genuinely addicted to hip hop in the 90s, addicted to the idea of empowerment. I think it came from [the fact that] the rappers in the 90s, their parents coming from the 70s, had such a rich variety of records to sample.
M.I.A.
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If it's just politics that's running music, f - k that. I'm out of here! I can't think of anything more boring.
M.I.A.
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In the beginning [of my career] I definitely felt a responsibility because I was representing a bunch of people [Sri lankans] who never got represented before. I felt this responsibility to correct that situation, to be like, Look, you can't discriminate against refugees and Muslim people and blah, blah, blah . . .
M.I.A.
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If you're talking about coexisting and tolerance then you have to live by example, and you can't have shiny people all the time everywhere, which is what breeds that sort of thinking - this is better than this, that is better than that.
M.I.A.
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In England right now you're not good enough until you get validated.
M.I.A.
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Across the world, on your phone, everybody gets the same list of things to read, listen to, and watch.
M.I.A.
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I fly like paper, get high like planes If you catch me at the border, I got visas in my name
M.I.A.
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I feel like I'm living in the dead weeds of hip-hop. I live in the graveyard of what went wrong with hip-hop.
M.I.A.
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I don't have a community like a black community to belong to [with] a musical platform that's been built for years and years and years, or the film-making culture, and I don't have the white one to belong to.
M.I.A.
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If you narrow the playing field, the next generation has less to put out, to eat and regenerate from.
M.I.A.
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Creativity needs time to harness before it goes out, and because that's difficult, memes have become the creative language.
M.I.A.
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Somebody told me that if you wake up every day and do stuff that's easy, then you're doing the wrong thing. If you wake up every day and do stuff that's really hard and you manage to get through to people, then you're doing the right thing. They might have just fooled me by telling me that, but it worked. I think that's my philosophy.
M.I.A.
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You have to constantly redefine who you are.
M.I.A.
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When mayors get together they probably have better conversations and have better notes to share about running different cities, and just do what suits. Basically, like when you combine all the religions and take the best bits, you should be able to combine all the cities and take the best bits, the information, the tried and tested things.
M.I.A.
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I wanted to represent a different decade, and I wanted someone who goes back further than me. I go back the furthest on this thing, I never really noticed that before. I'm going to have to fix that or I'm going to look really old.
M.I.A.
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Whoever's inside is inside whoever's out is out.
M.I.A.