Quote

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.

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Firsts
Millions
Survive
First
Came
Mom
Sewed
Way
Creative
Million
Braid
Things
Possible
Clothes
Braids
Whatever
Students
Pound
Money
Took
Lunch
Film
Hair
Pounds
Someone
Already
Student

More quotes by M.I.A.

Image
I felt pissed off because I realized that you have to teach people in a clichéd way how to be happy-and happiness has become too one thing in American media. Achieving happiness is not really about having a flat stomach and the best car.
M.I.A.
Image
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.
Image
My statements aren't incomplete, they're just in-progress. It's a debate and a discussion.
M.I.A.
Image
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.
Image
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.
Image
The music industry was invented, like, 100 years ago. I'm talking about the goddess Matangi, who invented music 5,000 years ago. She was the only thing that inspired me.
M.I.A.
Image
I'm not sticking up for white kids - I'm going to have a barrage of hate mail - but it's true. If you're poor, you're really poor.
M.I.A.
Image
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.
Image
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.
Image
It's the only thing to do when you're in London - hang out in a taxi.
M.I.A.
Image
Confidence takes constant nurturing, like a bed, it must be remade every day.
M.I.A.
Image
Everyone has that moment where they just rebel.
M.I.A.
Image
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.
Image
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.
Image
What's wrong with hip-hop [is that] it became so one-dimensional it became like a businessman thing. It's run out of creativity. It went so far off about making money that now everyone can do it.
M.I.A.
Image
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.
Image
Whoever's inside is inside whoever's out is out.
M.I.A.
Image
There's a bit of hope that a song can be about anything. If you want to write a song about anything, you can, and you don't have to put it through the process of having it be trendy or cool or generic pop or these types.
M.I.A.
Image
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.
Image
I fly like paper, get high like planes If you catch me at the border, I got visas in my name
M.I.A.