‘I’m trying to live by example. I want to buy a piece of jungle so if I want air I can go there to breathe’ — culture-hopping musician and artist M.I.A. is fond of the simpler things in life
M.I.A. has bigger things than music on her mind
“I had a dream about the day that China took over” says Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam better known as M.I.A.. “Everybody was getting shipped out on buses near this Chinese restaurant. And in the back of the restaurant there’s this secret world where everybody exchanges their value systems for Chinese ones.”
A publicist idles nearby to escort the London born-musician to a photo shoot she’s already late for. A barrage of interviews has laid waste to the day despite the need to finalize details for her latest North American tour. At this moment M.I.A.’s music and career are just background noise — bigger thoughts demand her attention. When asked about future projects she casually responds “I want to get into sustainable development.”
The internationally acclaimed superstar whose eclectic mélange of world music hip hop and dance has helped shaped the current state of popular music wants to draft economic and environmental policy. Sure M.I.A. has always been open about her politics. Her lyrics are steeped in populism and she inserts anti-Bush rhetoric into her live shows but she wants to do something more refined.
“I’m trying to live by example” she says. “I want to buy a piece of jungle so if I want air I can go there to breathe. That’s my start but I don’t know how to say that all in music.”
M.I.A. didn’t wake up from Cristal-induced dreams of a newly imperial China to start caring about the world. The daughter of a militant Tamil revolutionary who immigrated back to London with her mother and siblings during the Sri Lankan civil war she still struggles with oppression and injustice from her past troubles entering the U.S. to events outside her new home in Brooklyn.
“These cops beat the shit out of this black kid and I filmed it” she says. “I actually gave [the recording] to the community leaders but the cops kept leaving me messages about how I had the tape. And the American news is acting like nothing’s going on.”
M.I.A. used to believe in hip hop as a force for change. It served as a solace for her growing up a chance to connect her immigrant upbringing with the experience of black America in the ’80s. Two decades later as hip hop becomes increasingly ubiquitous M.I.A. is unsure of the music’s power.
“I feel like I’m living in the debris of hip hop” she says of her new home. “This is the neighbourhood where Biggie came from Jay-Z and Lil’ Kim too. Hip hop hasn’t evolved or helped anybody’s standard of life [here]. All those people who listened to hip hop 10 years ago are now broken people. Everybody just washed their hands of them. For 10 years it’s been this vacuous get-the-money bullshit.”
M.I.A. is not just frustrated with hip hop but the entire music business. She talks about a growing feeling of xenophobia that she sees as a visible minority and a female musician. Her biggest frustration though comes from the very people she made the music for.
“I want to wait till this stupid fucking scene that I’ve had a hand in creating fucking moves on” she says when the conversation turns to making another album. “I’m not making more music and feeding this stupid scene. I’ve been part of this whole do-it-yourself [esthetic] which is great but I also feel like I’ve given a lot of power to people who come from a privileged position and make music about nothing just to be famous. That’s not what it’s supposed to be about.
“In the four years I’ve given my life to music 10 per cent of the Tamil population has been wiped out” she continues. “That’s 500000 fucking deaths I can’t live with because in that time I could have done something. I’m on the cover of a magazine and all I want to do is open my mouth and say look over there.”
The publicist comes on the line and signals the end of the interview. M.I.A. has a photo shoot to go to more interviews to do the next day and tour details to finalize. The world and its problems will have to wait just one more day.
