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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.
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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
Culture
Art
Money
Define
Going
Britain
People
Arts
Instead
Creative
War
More quotes by M.I.A.
Art is supposed to be about creativity. But the same people are the same art darlings every month, and it's a bit annoying. It's supposed to be diverse and interesting and conceptual and have weird concepts in a comfortable place.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
In England right now you're not good enough until you get validated.
M.I.A.
Besides, isn't it more exciting when you don't have permission?
M.I.A.
We know that those huge U.S. brands do have political sway.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's the only thing to do when you're in London - hang out in a taxi.
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 feel like a mirror reflecting back everyones perception of me.
M.I.A.
Confidence takes constant nurturing, like a bed, it must be remade every day.
M.I.A.
If you narrow the playing field, the next generation has less to put out, to eat and regenerate from.
M.I.A.
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.
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.
