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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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M.I.A.
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: July 18
Activist
Actor
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Fashion Designer
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Music Video Director
Musician
Painter
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Rapper
Record Producer
Singer-Songwriter
Ventura County
California
Mathangi Arulpragasam
Maya Arulpragasam
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More quotes by M.I.A.
I think I have to expand my creativity a bit, because it's difficult for critics to be, Oh, this person writes their own lyrics and sometimes writes their own beats and sometimes makes her own videos. They funnel me through, Oh, is it as good as blah-blah's record, which has had 50 million writers on it?
M.I.A.
What really drives me mad about art is that, in America, the only thing you can do is to take it apart.
M.I.A.
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.
M.I.A.
Everyone has that moment where they just rebel.
M.I.A.
I feel so terrible for the kids now. In London, even people in their forties can't afford to buy a house or have kids.
M.I.A.
Culturally, I found myself in a very weird situation: you were the person that had made that journey to the West, and then you were going back to comment on something, and then suddenly you were questioned and told, You can't touch that now because you're a pop star.
M.I.A.
If music's a political place, I'm out.
M.I.A.
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.
M.I.A.
I never pigeonholed myself - the only reason you'd want to pigeonhole is to monetize your business and, as a person, I don't see the importance of doing that. My music took off above the rest of those things: You can just make a song, put it on a CD, and get it out to all these people.
M.I.A.
Besides, isn't it more exciting when you don't have permission?
M.I.A.
Instead of going to war, we should put the money into arts and culture and let creative people define what Britain is.
M.I.A.
Confidence takes constant nurturing, like a bed, it must be remade every day.
M.I.A.
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. But I did it in the most creative way possible.
M.I.A.
My statements aren't incomplete, they're just in-progress. It's a debate and a discussion.
M.I.A.
Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?
M.I.A.
Creativity needs time to harness before it goes out, and because that's difficult, memes have become the creative language.
M.I.A.
You can't turn up at college in stilettos and say you're gonna be a filmmaker. In the college, they were teaching me avant-garde filmmaking, where I had to make films that were, like, an hour long about nothing. I just refused to do it.
M.I.A.
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.
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.
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.
