M.I.A.
M.I.A.
hand life mike onstage pushed recorded songs three time worst
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.
music
It is a coincidence that Mathangi is the Goddess of Music and the spoken word, which can be rap.
Before the Greeks were the Tamils. The Tamils are one of the oldest civilizations that's still surviving.
talks time
In New York, everyone's really neurotic and talks about themselves all the time.
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.
immigrants society survived war
I don't think immigrants are that threatening to society at all. They're just happy they've survived some war somewhere.
answer call came england europe hand life lived school terrible visit
The first 10 years of my life, I lived as 'Matangi.' When I came to England in '86, my first week of school was terrible because I would put my hand up to answer things, and no one would choose me because they couldn't say my name. My auntie came from Europe to visit us, and she was like, 'Just call yourself something else.'
fights took
'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.
began coast government island lifetime majority sort spent war
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.
constantly redefine
You have to constantly redefine who you are.
again gonna human life middle remember shot war
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.'
concentration people
My giving birth was nothing when I think about all the people in Sri Lanka that have to give birth in a concentration camp.