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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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M.I.A.
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: July 18
Activist
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Music Video Director
Musician
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Singer-Songwriter
Ventura County
California
Mathangi Arulpragasam
Maya Arulpragasam
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More quotes by M.I.A.
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.
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.
If music's a political place, I'm out.
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.
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.
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.
Nike is the uniform for kids all over the world, and African design has been killed by Nike. Africans no longer want to wear their own designs.
M.I.A.
Whoever's inside is inside whoever's out is out.
M.I.A.
It's the only thing to do when you're in London - hang out in a taxi.
M.I.A.
With homogenized culture, even if you feel frustrated, you'd have to write a Taylor Swift song to get heard.
M.I.A.
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.
You have to constantly redefine who you are.
M.I.A.
In England right now you're not good enough until you get validated.
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.
Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?
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.
My statements aren't incomplete, they're just in-progress. It's a debate and a discussion.
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.
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.
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.
