M.I.A.

"I bongo with my Lingo, Beat it like a wing yo From Congo to Columbo, Can't sterotype my thing yo"

"Can I get Control? Do you like me Vulnerable? I'm armed and I'm equal More fun for the people..."

"All I want to do is [gunshots, cash register ring sounds] take your money... No one on the corner has swagga like us Hit me on the banner prepaid wireless We pack and deliver like UPS trucks Already going hell just pumping that gas."

"Do you know that cost of AKs Up in Africa 20 dollars ain't shit to you But that's how much they are So they gonna use the shit just to get far"

"I'm here to paint what's written on your face Cause these are the days We are losing our ways To find better ways To say what nobody says"

"Yeah manmade power Stood like a tower Higher Higher, Hello And the higher you go you feel lower, oh I was close to the edge Staying undercover, staying undercover And with my nose to the ground I found my Sound"

"I think I'm the edge finder"

"I think I just kind of thought about all the artists that I really respected throughout the - just any genre of music really and I think everybody that I respected and liked. They were just them. You know, they're people who always stuck to who they were, and were true and honest about who they were. So I think that kind of gave me a real like confidence to just stick at it. Just thinking about people like Bjork - you know, I don't know, Bob Dylan, you know artists that truly were strong in themselves."

"I'm more of a realist, than a theorist"

"I performed at a show at the MoMA. There was this big dinner there, and I was seated in this hall with the mayor of New York and all these extremely wealthy art-supporting and art-buying people. There was a piece of work hanging in the hall-it was a fan. This fan was supposed to swing by the momentum of its own propeller. So, while we were having dinner, the fan was stopped, and the guy next to me, a curator at P.S.1, said, "Look, this is what art symbolizes today." Like, that piece of art is supposed to be moving, but just to have dinner we've stopped the art. That's what New York is like today. You can't have real art happen in an institution because rich people can make the world stop. The stuff on the street is a lot more interesting."

"I used to see songwriting like editing a film or something. You can edit music like you can edit a film. Or if I was painting or making a picture or something, that night I could sit down and write a song. I think it really helps to break things up. Sometimes when you sit down to write songs, you write three or four songs in a row feeling the same sort of vibe. But if you stop in-between that time and change something, you break the pattern – you prevent yourself from unconsciously falling into a format."

"OK, let's go and explore the rest of the world, and how easy is it to put together music through found objects and stuff, and people, and ideas and certain electricity, certain environments."

"Kala is about my mum and her struggle–how do you work, feed your children, nurture them and give them the power of information?"

"I saw firsthand where the music we made ended up. It turned up in sterile bullshit clubs in LA, separated from the spirit we made it in."

"It's important for communities to be put together on a different basis. It's really shitty that we're taught to be really patriotic when 99 percent of the shit that we wear and we use and eat and everything comes from everywhere all the time, and musically, it's the same."

"Nobody wants to be dancing to political songs. Every bit of music out there that’s making it into the mainstream is really about nothing. I wanted to see if I could write songs about something important and make it sound like nothing. And it kind of worked."

"They wanted me to be the face of Coca Cola. I was like 'Wow. Have you guys got any idea what you’re talking about?' Then Pepsi called me the next week. My mother-in-law called me and said 'Oh my God, Maya, they’re offering you so much money."

"I feel like I'm a fucking infomercial for issues around the world this year. I don’t want it to be like that though. I feel like for the first time I'm truly falling in love with music in its own right."

"I was never really affected by it because I don’t have the time to go up to every grime kid and explain the ideology and the lifestyle. It’s too hard....Look at Afrikan Boy, he still has that problem. You have this talent to see something and articulate something new, but you can’t because the arena to do that doesn’t exist. It’s easier to breed movements in England than really support one artist, especially in urban culture."

"I didn't want to make huge political statements; in fact, I hate preachy shit and people saying, 'This is good; this is bad.' I talk about how I see things as an everyday person in England. I was saying things that were a bit controversial, and I wanted to say that there are some opinions that aren't black and white. Things are confusing and complex. If you really want to be a good person, you understand things from all points of view and you are empathetic towards every opinion and every voice. I was like, 'I'm going to make an album about how it's difficult to make sense of living today, and that is added to by the television and the media, the person at my bank and the person at my mobile phone company.' I want to make sense of all those people and what is going on, and that is what I tried to do lyrically, and not provide a manifesto."

"I haven't heard honesty in music for so long and this is how I feel, and this is what I think. You don't even have to say words … I was just being as raw as possible. I wanted to make music that you felt in your gut."

"I feel the reason why I'm really like outspoken and stuff is because all of these things were inflicted upon me, and I never went and caused any trouble, you know? I just feel like I was kind of skipping along in some country and somebody decides to drop a bomb and shake up my life and then it's all been survival from then on. And that's the reality for thousands - and millions - of people today. Why should I get censored for talking about a life that half the time I didn't choose to live?"

"It's good. You know, it's nice coming out and actually meeting all your fans - you make this thing in your bedroom and you don't really know who is going to get it or relate to it or anything, you know? And you just pour your heart out kind of thing, and then you find out you relate to people and that's the final process of it. You know, to meet people who are actually like you and that you connect with, you know what I mean? That's kind of cool. That's the best thing about touring."

"I'm not sure, but music now should be like sonic massage. You want to really feel it, internally. The police [sic] use sound cannons at public protests that explode people’s insides with a single note – human beings have to come up with the opposite of that."

"As soon as I came to England, really, I must have about spent two or three months bouncing around the pop world trying to get an idea of what England was. I wasn't really motivated by anything else. And nothing really inspired me. I was really confused about who I was and where I stood in society, you know what I mean? You come there and you just don't know what the hell is going on. And then I remember the first house we stayed in and I watched 'Top of the Pops' and it was like- woah! It was the first music show that I saw on TV. I saw Madonna, Whitney Houston. It was amazing"

"I have to be true to that - I can't take certain things away. I do have a political background. I’m only in England, learning this language and building a life in this society, because of political reasons. Why would I deny that?"

"My approach to politics is that I never said I'm smart. But why aren't I allowed to write about my experience?"

"No one ever gives those kids the microphone and says, 'Tell us, what the fuck is going on.' They don't show them because none of them know how to talk to you. It took me 20 years to get over here, learn the language, become a pop star and say, 'Finally, I get the microphone!' This is what I was going to say if I got it when I was 10."

"I don't know which is worse. The fact that I saw it in my life has maybe given me lots of issues, but there's a whole generation of American kids seeing violence on their computer screens and then getting shipped off to Afghanistan. They feel like they know the violence when they don't. Not having a proper understanding of violence, especially what it's like on the receiving end of it, just makes you interpret it wrong and makes inflicting violence easier.""

"Google’s more powerful than any government now – people think it’s God. They’re storing all our data and one day they’re going to turn against us."

"The Third World deserves freedom of speech just like everyone else. We want to fight the battle to say what we want, whether to be serious or just make fun of ourselves. That's what "Worldtown" is about, that's what "Paper Planes" is about. It's what people in the third world live through."

"He asked my mum, 'Why would I devote myself to one woman and three children when I could be helping thousands?' She said: 'If you even have to ask that, you should go.'One of those times, when he came home, he didn't even know what I was called."

"I'm here for the people"

"Exactly! Trends picks up issues and makes them so disposable. At the time when I started making my art and my music, terrorism was getting chewed up and spat out by the fashion industry, put on the run way. Face magazine in England was doing fashion shoots with girls holding machine guns and fucking rocket launchers. Yet, when something genuine comes through that, like me, using the same language, it doesn’t apply. That’s what I’m learning because that’s what I’m about. I wanna learn what my limitations are within your value system"

"I call bullshit on any system that holds me down. If the system changed my life the way it did and it totally abused my life and my family, then I’m willing to stand up against it. My goal is to bring people into the system. If I have to use some shocking imagery or if I have to use some honest up-front language to get in and wake people up, so be it. At least, it has sparked up some discussion and young people feel like they have the right to talk. That’s all you can hope for, to induce discussion and then make people feel like they have the right to discuss political issues."

"When I come back to London, I feel really safe and familiar. But sometimes I feel like I'm on standby, waiting to go somewhere else – where something else is happening."

"I can sing about songs with gunshots in the background because I heard them. It's almost like my music has been a way to smoke out the hatred that's been bubbling underneath what's going on in Sri Lanka. If there's 300,000 people who are trapped and they're dying, it should be talked about, it should be brought to the table, and I don't see anything wrong in sticking up for 300,000 dying people."

"GAVRAS: So let’s talk a little bit about being a fashion icon. Do you think, for example, that Saddam Hussein was a fashion icon?"

"M.I.A.: No. My fashion icon is Colonel [Muammar al-] Gaddafi, and he always has been. He’s rock ’n’ roll."

"GAVRAS: Yeah, he’s the best-dressed man on the planet."

"M.I.A.: If he were a pop star, he’d be, like, Prince or something."

"GAVRAS: Well, he’s bigger than a pop star. I mean, when he came to Paris in 2007, he was supposed to stay at the Hôtel de Marigny, which is the best hotel. But Gaddafi came with a tent. It was this huge flagged tent—just him and his army guards, who were all girls. They were in these crazy leopard outfits. I mean, Gaddafi is way better dressed than any pop star in the world."

"M.I.A.: I’d love to raid his wardrobe."

"GAVRAS: I’d love to have his hair. He has very good curly, shiny hair."

"M.I.A.: He looks like he always has gel in it. Hold on. [to taxi driver] Can you pull over, please? I’m at Notting Hill Gate station."

"A. R. Rahman: "She’s a real powerhouse...Somebody played me her CD and I thought, ‘Who is this girl? She came here and knew all my work, had followed my work for ages. I said, ‘Cut the crap, this “my idol” crap. You have to teach me.""

"Aziz Ansari: "I was like a little girl at a John Mayer concert. “She stole my heart, man. It’s too much: the talent, the beauty. It’s more than this little Aziz can take.” I approached M.I.A. after her show, speaking in our native Tamil (“We’ve got a lot in common. Not a big deal.”). I said "Romba Nalla Paatu" which translates to "very good songs". She smiled, got in her car, and left. She didn’t contact me or anything after that. I guess we didn’t exchange information.” “People keep asking if she’s called me and I keep telling them no." [http://niralimagazine.com/2007/04/comedic-giant/"

"Claire Danes: "M.I.A. Sunshowers: It's impossible for me to resist dancing whenever I hear it.""

"Danny Boyle: "When I use somebody's song in a film, I like them to see the movie, if possible, so they know how it's used. She came into the cutting room and watched it. You get a lot of people giving you notes on films when you're making them, and most of them are rubbish, to be honest. People might think they're good. Well, she came in told me the film was very good, but said, "Do you want some notes?" She gave me two specific notes, both of which we included in the film, essentially saying, "If you do that there, you'll understand why he gets on the show." She's very smart.""

"Who the hell is huntin' you? In the BMW How the hell they find you? 1 4 7'd you Feds gonna get you Pull the strings on the hood One Paranoid you Blazing through the Hood."