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" 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. "
M.I.A.
Remember
Me
People
Related Quotes:
" 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.' "
M.I.A.
People
Good
Great
" When we moved to England in 1986, I was ten years old and I didn't know anything about punk or hip hop. The only words I knew in English were 'dance' and 'Michael Jackson.' We got put in a flat in Mitchum, and the council gave us second hand furniture, second hand clothes and a second hand radio that I took to bed with me every night. "
M.I.A.
Dance
Words
Night
" It is a coincidence that Mathangi is the Goddess of Music and the spoken word, which can be rap. "
M.I.A.
Music
Rap
Goddess
" Me, it was always about being able to bounce around to where I wanna be. Like, with 'Arular,' people always say it's so political, but I think 50 per cent of the album is not very political at all. It's just really a shouty, shouty girl thing. "
M.I.A.
Political
Think
Girl
" 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. "
M.I.A.
Like
Go
World
" 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. "
M.I.A.
Me
Shot
London
" 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. "
M.I.A.
Way
Done
Creativity
" Before the Greeks were the Tamils. The Tamils are one of the oldest civilizations that's still surviving. "
M.I.A.
Surviving
Still
Oldest
" 'Paper Planes' was an accident. It wasn't a song we made for the masses. It took two years to get popular, and there were many fights about censoring the gunshot sounds. "
M.I.A.
Song
Paper
Masses
" 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. "
M.I.A.
Think
Practice
Song
" You have to constantly redefine who you are. "
M.I.A.
You
Redefine
Constantly
" I feel like a mirror reflecting back everyone's perception of me. "
M.I.A.
Feel
Me
Mirror
" 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. "
M.I.A.
Find
Music
Home
" 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. "
M.I.A.
You
Together
Color
" In New York, everyone's really neurotic and talks about themselves all the time. "
M.I.A.
Really
New
New York
" As an artist, you want to play around with mediums and see if you can get the point across in different way. "
M.I.A.
Way
Artist
Want
" Versace designs have always been bootlegged. Now it's Versace bootlegging the bootleg for the bootleggers to bootleg the bootleg. "
M.I.A.
Been
Versace
Always
" I am the bridge between the East and the West. I don't want to abandon one for the other. "
M.I.A.
Bridge
I Am
West
" 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.' "
M.I.A.
My Life
Remember
War
" My giving birth was nothing when I think about all the people in Sri Lanka that have to give birth in a concentration camp. "
M.I.A.
Nothing
Giving
Birth
" 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. "
M.I.A.
Time
My Life
Me
" Sri Lanka is an island off the coast of India. There's two ethnicities there; one the Sinhalese, which is the majority and the government, and the minority, who are the Tamils. That's where I'm from. And my lifetime sort of began there; I spent 10 years, and I was there during when the war started and fled as a refugee to England. "
M.I.A.
Two
Government
India
" You have, in America, you have gang signs. Well, 5,000 years ago, there was thing called a mudra, which is your sitting position when you do yoga or you're meditating or you're praying or whatever. And there's not a lot of them that are named after gods and goddesses, but the middle-finger is specifically named the Matangi mudra. "
M.I.A.
Gang
Sitting
Well
" 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. "
M.I.A.
Hood
Freedom
Freedom Of Speech
" My dad grew up in a mud hut and studied by candlelight. He was 14 when he got a scholarship to Russia. He was super clever - the cleverest person. He landed in 5ft of snow, and was alone at 14, studying science and engineering. He didn't have a bed, and he slept on a table. "
M.I.A.
Snow
Science
Mud
" I don't think immigrants are that threatening to society at all. They're just happy they've survived some war somewhere. "
M.I.A.
Immigrants
Think
Society
" The theme of counterfeits, of those that produce and sell them, has always been part of the culture of M.I.A. When I was contacted by Versace, it seemed a great idea to invert the circle. Versace's designs have always been copied; now it's Versace that copies the copies, so those that copy must copy the copies. So this will continue. "
M.I.A.
Copy
Always
Great
" 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. "
M.I.A.
Her
Fake
Mom
" 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. "
M.I.A.
Music
Strong
Hate
" My record label always says you shouldn't talk about money because it makes people extremely uncomfortable. Refugees can't talk about money. Rappers can talk about money; refugees can't talk about money. "
M.I.A.
Talk
People
Money