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All Quotes by author - M.I.A.
" As an artist, you want to play around with mediums and see if you can get the point across in different way. "
Way
Artist
Want
" At first, I found the music I was making really hard to find a home for. I felt like my attitude was really British, but not the actual sounds I was making. Back in 2003, when I made 'Galang,' there were no clubs that had an 'anything and everything' attitude. "
Find
Music
Home
" Basically, when I went to school in Sri Lanka from age five onward, the classes there were sometimes sorted into a hierarchy of your skin tone. So the fairer-skinned kids sat at the front row, and the darker-skinned kids sat at the back by the poor ones who played out in the street all day long. "
Long
Street
Skin
" Before the Greeks were the Tamils. The Tamils are one of the oldest civilizations that's still surviving. "
Surviving
Still
Oldest
" Human beings around the world have to be taught to go, 'Tamil equals Tamil civilians first, and the Tamil Tiger is a separate thing.' And both of those groups are different. It's like a square and a circle. "
Like
Go
World
" I am the bridge between the East and the West. I don't want to abandon one for the other. "
Bridge
I Am
West
" I don't consider myself a musician. I'm an artist. "
Artist
Myself
Musician
" I don't intentionally go: 'Ooh, what is provocative,' and try to do that. I just do stuff, and people go: 'Ooh, that's provocative.' "
Stuff
People
Ooh
" I don't like the idea of spirituality done the way it's done. The only way I could understand it was through creativity, not by going to an Ashram, or finding a guru or joining a temple. I made work out of it. "
Way
Done
Creativity
" I don't support terrorism and never have. As a Sri Lankan that fled war and bombings, my music is the voice of the civilian refugee. "
War
Terrorism
Music
" I don't think immigrants are that threatening to society at all. They're just happy they've survived some war somewhere. "
Immigrants
Think
Society
" I don't understand why people make me want to make music that's a join-the-dots thing by numbers. I find it really difficult when people say, 'Aw, you should have made a really big hip hop record, that would have been really good for you' or, 'You should have made a song like Lily Allen, that would have been so great.' "
People
Good
Great
" I feel like a mirror reflecting back everyone's perception of me. "
Feel
Me
Mirror
" I feel like people either love me or hate me, which is good, because that was the point of what I do. The point of M.I.A. is to be - it's either to be loved or hated. At least you evoke that much of a strong opinion about music. "
Music
Strong
Hate
" I have no ties to my dad. I had no communications with him; it didn't shape who I am or anything like that. I'm actually a product of my mom. "
Product
Shape
Him
" I'm just so grateful for the 10 years that I had in Sri Lanka when it was in the middle of a war and I was getting shot at, because now and again I remember glimpses of those times, and I just go, 'Wow, I'll never, ever see that again in my life. And I'm never gonna feel that, and I'm never gonna feel for a human being like that.' "
My Life
Remember
War
" In 2004, I went onstage for the first time. They put a mike in my hand and pushed me out the door into the crowd. I did the three songs I had recorded and got out. It was the worst day of my life. "
Time
My Life
Me
" I never pigeonhole myself into any religion, but I feel it has found me. I am trying to make sense of it... the essence of the Mathangi concept. "
Myself
Religion
Trying
" In India, you see the way they embrace color in the culture - it's very celebratory of the existence of color. There's no rule of what color belongs together or doesn't belong together. They're not precious about it. It's very full-on. "
You
Together
Color
" In my head, I actually think my songs are pop songs. I think, 'Damn, that's a pop song!' I can practice in front of the mirror with my hairbrush for as long as I want to. But when it finally comes out, it sounds avant-garde to people. "
Think
Practice
Song
" In New York, everyone's really neurotic and talks about themselves all the time. "
Really
New
New York
" I remember taking my demo to every dance person in London. People were like, 'We don't know what this is!' The first people to champion me were a club in Manchester. "
Remember
Me
People
" It is a coincidence that Mathangi is the Goddess of Music and the spoken word, which can be rap. "
Music
Rap
Goddess
" It's a bit weird, because I don't really know what people expect or think being political is; I just don't get it. What am I supposed to do as a pop star-stroke-revolutionary? Get up and put my balaclava on, go to the grocery store and then invent some Google viruses, and then go to rob a bank to fund my revolution on YouTube? "
People
Revolution
Political
" It's interesting, because 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. All the survival stuff, too. And then the next album is 'Maya,' which is not my real name. It's fake. "
Her
Fake
Mom
" I was part of the generation that pushed the Internet. In fact, I broke as an artist in the U.S.A. because of the Internet. "
Generation
Part
Artist
" I was shot at for being a Tamil in Sri Lanka, and then, everyone was calling me a Paki in London, and I'm not even Pakistani. "
Me
Shot
London
" Madonna did amazing songs. She had an amazing sense of style, without a stylist. And she was flawed, and sometimes she admitted it. I'll fight the fight for Madonna. I think she should send me some chocolates or something to thank me. "
Style
Fight
Me
" Manhattan seems pretty developed, you know what I mean? Like, it has peaked in culture. "
Know
Pretty
You
" Matangi's mantra is aim, which is MIA backwards. She fights for freedom of speech and stands for truth, and lives in the ghetto because her dad was the first person in Hindu mythology who came from the 'hood, but had gained enlightenment through not being a Brahmin. "
Hood
Freedom
Freedom Of Speech
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