Arulpragasam biography

British rapper (born )

Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam^[2]MBE^[3] (Tamil: மாதங்கி 'மாயா' அருள்பிரகாசம்; born 18 July ), known professionally as M.I.A. (Tamil: எம்.ஐ.ஏ.; an initialism for both "Missing in Action" and "Missing in Acton"), is a British rapper, record producer, songwriter and singer. Her music combines elements of alternative, dance, electronic, hip hop and world music with electronic instruments and samples.

Born in London to Sri Lankan Tamil parents, M.I.A. and her family moved to Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka when she was six months old. As a child, she experienced displacement caused by the Sri Lankan Civil War, which made the family return to London as refugees when M.I.A. was 11 years old; the war had a defining influence on M.I.A.'s artistry. She started out as a visual artist, filmmaker and designer in , and began her recording career in One of the first acts to come to public attention through the Internet,^[4] she saw early fame as an underground artist in early with her singles "Sunshowers" and "Galang".

M.I.A.'s first two albums, Arular () and Kala (), received widespread critical acclaim for their fusion of hip hop, electronic, and world music influences. The latter's single, "Paper Planes", (co-produced by at-the-time partner Diplo) peaked at number four on the US Billboard Hot and received a nomination for Record of the Year at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards. Her third album, Maya (), was preceded by the single "Born Free" and an accompanying controversial music video/short film. Maya debuted within the top ten of the album charts in the top ten in the United States, Finland, Norway, Greece and Canada. Her fourth studio album, Matangi (), spawned the single "Bad Girls", which won accolades at the MTV Video Music Awards. Her fifth album, AIM (), was met with a critical and commercial decline. She guest performed alongside Young Thug on Travis Scott's single "Franchise", which peaked atop the Billboard Hot , and released her sixth studio album Mata () two years later, which spawned the single "The One".^[5]

M.I.A.'s accolades include two American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) awards and two MTV Video Music Awards. She is the first person of South Asian descent to be nominated for an Academy Award and Grammy Award in the same year.^[6] She was named one of the defining artists of the s decade by Rolling Stone, and one of the most influential people of by Time. Esquire ranked M.I.A. on its list of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century. According to Billboard, she was one of the "Top 50 Dance/Electronic Artists of the s".^[7] M.I.A. was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Birthday Honours for her services to music.^[8]

Life and career

– Early life

Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam was born on 18 July ,^[9] in Hounslow, London, the daughter of Arul Pragasam,^[10] a Sri Lankan Tamil engineer, writer, and activist, and his wife, Kala, a seamstress. Her first name is derived from the Hindu goddess, Matangi.^[11] When she was six months old, her family moved to Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka, where her brother Sugu was born.^[12] There, her father adopted the name Arular and became a political activist and founding member of the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), a political Tamil group affiliated with the LTTE. The first 11 years of Arulpragasam's life were marked by displacement caused by the Sri Lankan Civil War.^[12] Her family went into hiding from the Sri Lankan Army, and Arulpragasam had little contact with her father during this period. She has described her family as living in "big-time" poverty during her childhood but also recalls some of her happiest memories from growing up in Jaffna.^[12][13][14] Maya attended Catholic convent schools such as the Holy Family Convent, Jaffna, where she developed her art skills—painting in particular—to work her way up her class.^[15][16]

During the civil war, soldiers would put guns through holes in the windows and shoot at the school.^[16] Her classmates were trained to dive under the table or run next door to English-language schools so that, according to her, they "wouldn't get shot."^[16] Arulpragasam lived on a road alongside much of her extended family and played inside temples and churches in the town. Due to safety concerns, Arulpragasam's mother relocated herself and her children to Madras in India, where they lived in a derelict house and received sporadic visits from their father, who was introduced to the children as their "uncle" in order to protect them.^[12][17] The family, minus Arular, then resettled in Jaffna temporarily, only to see the war escalate further in northeast Sri Lanka. During this time, nine-year-old Arulpragasam's primary school was destroyed in a government raid.^[18][19]

Her mother then returned with her children back to London in , a week before Arulpragasam's 11th birthday, where they were housed as refugees.^[12] Her father arrived on the island and became an independent peace mediator between the two sides of the civil war in the late s–^[20] Arulpragasam spent the rest of her childhood and teenage years living on the Phipps Bridge Estate in the Mitcham district of south London, where she learned to speak English, while her mother brought the children up on a modest income. Arulpragasam entered the final year of primary school in the autumn of and quickly mastered the English language. Her classmates had difficulty pronouncing her first name so her aunt suggested that she use the nickname "Maya".^[11] Hers was one of only two Asian families on the estate at the time,^[20] in an atmosphere she has described as "incredibly racist."^[21]

While living in England and raising her children, Arulpragasam's mother became a Christian in and worked as a seamstress for the Royal Family for much of her career.^[13] She worked from her home in London's Tooting area. Arulpragasam had a difficult relationship with her father, due to his political activities in the s and complete absence during much of her life. Prior to the release of the first album, which Arulpragasam had named after her father, he emailed her: "This is Dad. Change the title of your album. I'm really proud. Just read about you in the Sri Lanka Times. Dad."^[22] She chose not to change the album title. Arulpragasam attended the Ricards Lodge High School in Wimbledon. Following high school, she attended Central Saint Martins by gaining admittance through unconventional means despite not having formally applied.^[23] In , she graduated from London's Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design with a degree in fine art, film, and video.^[13]

– Visual art and film

While attending Central St Martins College, Arulpragasam wanted to make films and art depicting realism that would be accessible to everyone, something that she felt was missing from her classmates' ethos and the course criteria. At college, she found the fashion courses "disposable" and more current than the film texts that she studied.^[24] Maya told Arthur magazine "[Students there were] exploring apathy, dressing up in some pigeon outfit, or running around conceptualising It missed the whole point of art representing society. Social reality didn't really exist there; it just stopped at theory."^[24] She cited "radical cinema" including Harmony Korine, Dogme 95 and Spike Jonze as some of her cinematic inspirations during film school.^[25] As a student, she was approached by director John Singleton to work on a film in Los Angeles after he had read a script she had written, though she decided not to take up the offer.^[25][26] For her degree, M.I.A. prepared her departmental honours thesis on the film CB4.^[27]

Arulpragasam befriended students in the college's fashion, advertising and graphics departments.^[24] She met Justine Frischmann, front woman of the British band Elastica, through her friend Damon Albarn at an Air concert in , and Frischmann commissioned Arulpragasam to create the cover art for the band's album, The Menace, and video document their American tour.^[15][18][19] Arulpragasam returned to Jaffna in to film a documentary on Tamil youth, but was unable to complete the project because she encountered harassment.^[26][28] In , Arulpragasam's first public exhibition of paintings after graduating took place at the Euphoria Shop on London's Portobello Road. It featured graffiti art and spray-paint canvasses mixing Tamil political street art with images of London life and consumerist culture.^[19][29] The show was nominated for an Alternative Turner Prize and a monograph book of the collection was published in ,^[9] titled M.I.A.. Actor Jude Law was among early buyers of her art.^[15][29][30]

– Musical beginnings and Arular

Arulpragasam cites the radio broadcasts she heard emanating from her neighbours' flats in the late s as some of her first exposures to her earliest musical influences.^[20] From there, she developed an interest in hip-hop and dancehall, identifying with "the starkness of the sound" in records by Public Enemy, MC Shan and Ultramagnetic MCs; and the "weird, distinct style" of acts such as Silver Bullet and London Posse.^[31][32] In college she developed an affinity for punk and the emerging sounds of Britpop and electroclash.^[33] M.I.A. cites The Slits, Malcolm McLaren and The Clash as major influences.^[34][35]

By , Arulpragasam designed the cover for Elastica's last single "The Bitch Don't Work", and went on the road with the band to video document their tour. The tour's supporting act, electroclash artist Peaches, introduced Arulpragasam to the Roland MC and encouraged her to make music, a medium in which Arulpragasam lacked confidence.^[18][33] While holidaying together in Bequia in the Caribbean, Arulpragasam began experimenting with Frischmann's MC^[13][15] She adopted her stage name, "M.I.A.", standing for "Missing In Acton" during this time.^[14] In her book Arulpragasam writes, "M.I.A. came to be because of my missing cousin. I wanted to make a film about where he was since he was M.I.A. (Missing in Action) in Sri Lanka. We were the same age, went to the same schools growing up. I was also living in Acton at the time. So I was living in Acton looking for my cousin missing in action."^[36] Of her time in Bequia, she said "I started going out to this chicken shed with a sound system. You buy rum through a hatch and dance in the street. They convinced me to come to church where people sing so amazingly. But I couldn't clap along to hallelujah. I was out of rhythm. Someone said, 'What happened to Jesus? I saw you dancing last night and you were totally fine.' They stopped the service and taught me to clap in time. It was embarrassing".^[16] Returning to West London, where she shared an apartment with Frischmann, she began working with a simple set-up (a second-hand 4-tracktape machine, the MC, and a radio microphone), composing and recording a six-song demo tape that included "Lady Killa", "M.I.A.", and "Galang".^[37][38]

In , the independent label Showbiz Records pressed vinyl singles of "Galang", a mix of dancehall, electro, jungle, and world music, with Seattle Weekly praising its a cappellacoda as a "lift-up-and-over moment" evoking "clear skies beyond the council flats."^[39][40]File sharing, college radio airplay, and the rise in popularity of "Galang" and "Sunshowers" in dance clubs and fashion shows made M.I.A. an underground sensation.^[41] M.I.A. has been heralded as one of the first artists to build a large fanbase exclusively via these channels and as someone who could be studied to re-examine the internet's impact on how listeners are exposed to new music.^[42][43][44] She began uploading her music onto her MySpace account in June Major record labels caught on to the popularity of the second song she has written,^[45] "Galang", and M.I.A. was eventually signed to XL Recordings in mid^[31][46] Her debut album, to be titled Arular was finalised by borrowing studio time.^[47]

M.I.A.'s next single, "Sunshowers", released on 5 July , and its B-side ("Fire Fire") described guerrilla warfare and asylum seeking, merging ambiguous references to violence and religious persecution with black and white forms of dissidence.^[48] These themes inspired her treatment for the music video, the first she wrote. It was filmed in the jungles of South India, which she has described as her favourite.^[13][49] "Galang" was re-released in In September , M.I.A. was first featured on the cover of the publication The FADER,^[50] in its 24th issue.^[51] The music video for "Galang" made in November of that year showed multiple M.I.A.s against a backdrop of militaristic animated graffiti, and depicted scenes of urban Britain and war that influenced her art direction for it. Both singles appeared on international publications' "Best of the Year" lists and subsequently "Best of the Decade" lists. The songs "Pull Up the People", "Bucky Done Gun" and "" were released as inch singles and CDs by XL Recordings, which along with the non-label mashup mixtape of Arular tracks, Piracy Funds Terrorism, were distributed in to positive critical acclaim.^[17]

M.I.A. made her North American live debut in February in Toronto where concertgoers already knew many of her songs.^[19] In March , M.I.A.'s debut album Arular was released worldwide to critical acclaim after several months delay.^[52][53] The album title is the nom de guerre that M.I.A.'s father took when he joined the Tamil independence movement, and many of the songs acknowledge her and her father's experiences in Jaffna. While making Arular in her bedroom in west London, she built tracks off her demos, using beats she programmed on the Roland MC^[19][54] The album experiments with bold, jarring and ambient sounds, and its lyrics address the Iraq War and daily life in London as well as M.I.A.'s past.^[35][47][55]

"Galang", "Sunshowers", "Hombre" and the funk carioca-inspired co-composition "Bucky Done Gun" were released as singles from Arular. The release of the latter marked the first time that a funk carioca-inspired song was played on mainstream radio and music television in Brazil, its country of origin.^[56] M.I.A. worked with one of her musical influences Missy Elliott, contributing to the track "Bad Man" on her album The Cookbook.^[47] Despite initial fears that her dyslexia might pose problems while touring, M.I.A. supported the album through a series of festival and club shows, including the Bue Festival in Buenos Aires, a free headlining show at Central ParkSummerstage, the Summer Sonic Fest and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, where she played an encore in response to crowd enthusiasm, a rare occurrence for the festival generally and the first encore following a tent performance at Coachella.^[47][57][58] She also toured with Roots Manuva and LCD Soundsystem, and ended briefly touring with Gwen Stefani and performing at the Big Day Out festival.^[59][60] On 19 July , M.I.A. was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize for Arular.^[61] According to the music review aggregation Metacritic, it garnered an average score of 88 out of , described as "universal acclaim".^[62] They reported in that Arular was the seventh best reviewed album of and the ninth Best-Reviewed Electronic/Dance Album on Metacritic of the –09 decade.^[63][64]Arular became the second most featured album in music critics' Year-End Top 10 lists for and was named best of the year by publications such as Blender,Stylus and Musikbyrån.^[52]

– Kala and world recognition

In , M.I.A. recorded her second studio album Kala, this time named after her mother. Due to visacomplications in the United States, the album was recorded in a variety of locations — India, Trinidad, Liberia, Jamaica, Australia, Japan, and the UK. Eventually the album was completed in the US.^[65][66]

Kala featured live instrumentation and layers of traditional dance and folk styles such as soca and the urumee drum of gaana, rave music and bootleg soundtracks of Tamil film music, incorporating new styles into her avant-gardeelectronic dance music.^[67][68] The songs, artwork and fashion of Kala have been characterised as simultaneously celebratory and infused with raw, "darker, outsider" themes, such as immigration politics, personal relationships and war.^[66][69] In February , the first track from the album to be made available to the public was "Bird Flu", which was posted with an accompanying music video to her MySpace.^[70][71] Later that year, M.I.A. featured in the song "Come Around", a bonus track on Timbaland's album Shock Value and a track on Kala.^[65] The album's first official single "Boyz" was released in June , accompanied by a music video co-directed by Jay Will and M.I.A., becoming M.I.A.'s first top ten charting song. The single "Jimmy", written about an invitation to tour genocide-affected regions in Rwanda that the singer received from a journalist while staying in Liberia, was released next.^[65] The single "Paper Planes", described a "satire on immigrant stereotypes",^[72] and the EP Paper Planes – Homeland Security Remixes EP were released digitally in February , the single eventually selling three times platinum in the US and Canada, certified Gold in New Zealand,^[73][74] and becoming the 29th most downloaded song in the digital era in the US and earning a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year.^[73][75][76] "Paper Planes" is to date XL Recordings' second best selling single, and by November it had sold &#;million copies in the US, currently the seventh best-selling song by a British artist in the digital era.^[77] In , M.I.A. also released the How Many Votes Fix Mix EP which included a remix of "Boyz" featuring Jay-Z.^[78]

Like its predecessor, universal acclaim met Kala's release in August and the album earned a normalised rating of 87 out of on Metacritic.^[79]Kala was a greater commercial success than Arular. To support Kala, M.I.A. performed at a series of music festivals on the Kala Tour featuring performances in Europe, America and Asia. She performed three dates opening for Björk in the US and France.^[80][81] In , M.I.A. provided guest vocals on Buraka Som Sistema's kuduro song "Sound of Kuduro", recorded in Angola with an accompanying video.^[82] The same year, M.I.A. and director Spike Jonze filmed a documentary in Woolwich, South London, in which they both appeared with Afrikan Boy, a Nigerian immigrant rapper and she disclosed plans to launch her own record label, Zig-Zag.^[83][84][85] She ended the year with concerts in the United Kingdom.^[86] By year end, Kala was named the best album of by publications including Rolling Stone and Blender.^[87] Metacritic reported in that Kala was the tenth Best-Reviewed Electronic/Dance Album on the website of the –09 decade, one position below her debut album Arular.^[63] M.I.A. performed on the People vs. Money Tour during the first half of ^[35] She cancelled the final leg of her tour in Europe through June and July after revealing her intentions to take a career break and work on other art projects, go back to college and make a film.^[35]

In , M.I.A. started her independent record label N.E.E.T. Recordings.^[88] The first artist signed to the label was Baltimore rapper Rye Rye, who performed with M.I.A. at the Diesel XXX party at Pier 3 in Brooklyn in October where it was revealed that M.I.A. was pregnant with her first child.^[89] During her performance at the Bonnaroo Music Festival, M.I.A. announced it was her "last show ever", following by cancelling a British tour and saying she would then focus on recording new material.^[90] However, a few days afterwards Danny Boyle called her, wanting her to collaborate with A. R. Rahman in the score of his film Slumdog Millionaire.^[91] The result was the song "O Saya", for which M.I.A. was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song and a World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Song Written Directly for a Film for the song.^[92][93][94] M.I.A. was due to perform at the Oscars ceremony two weeks after her Grammy Award performance, but could not as she had just given birth to her son.^[95] M.I.A. is the first person of Asian descent to be nominated for an Oscar and Grammy award in the same year.

– Maya

At the BRIT Awards in February, M.I.A. was a nominee for Best British Female Artist.^[96] Seeking to promote new, underground music with N.E.E.T., M.I.A. signed more bands including Baltimore musician Blaqstarr, indie rock band Sleigh Bells and visual artist Jaime Martinez by late ^[97] 3D photographic images of M.I.A. by Martinez were commissioned in April of that year.^[98][99] In August , M.I.A. began composing and recording her third studio album in a home studio section in her Los Angeles house.^[] In January , M.I.A. posted her video for the song "Space".^[][] While composing it, she helped write a song with Christina Aguilera called "Elastic Love" for Aguilera's album Bionic.^[] By April , the song and music video/short film "Born Free"^[] were leaked online.^[] The video-film short was directed by Romain Gavras and written by M.I.A., depicting genocide against red-haired adolescents being forced to run across a minefield and caused controversy due to its violent content.^[][] The video was removed from YouTube the same day it was released, then reinstated with an age restriction, then removed once more.^[] Although not an official single, the song charted in Sweden and the United Kingdom. M.I.A.'s third album, Maya — stylised as ΛΛ&#;Λ&#;Y&#;Λ — was released on 23 June in Japan with bonus tracks before its release in other countries.^[][]Maya became M.I.A.'s highest charting album globally. Its release in the US was delayed by two weeks.^[] The album garnered a generally favourable, although divided, reception from critics.^[] A more internet-inspired album illustrating how a multimedia artist worked within the music industry, elements of industrial music were incorporated into M.I.A.'s sound for the first time, and it was seen as a stylistic shift towards the more experimental.^[] She described the album in an interview with Dazed & Confused as a mix of "babies, death, destruction and powerlessness".^[97][][][]

On 11 May , the first official single from Maya, "XXXO", was released and reached the top forty in Belgium, Spain and the UK.^[][] "Steppin' Up", "Teqkilla", and "Tell Me Why" were also released as promotional singles exclusively on iTunes in the days leading to the release of Maya, with "Teqkilla" reaching the top in Canada on digital downloads alone.^[]

The video for "XXXO" was released online in August. M.I.A. hinted in an interview to Blitz that a music video is being made with director Spike Jonze for the single "Teqkilla."^[] She completed her live tour dates on the Maya Tour in summer of ^[][][]

From until , she directed the video for Elastica single "Mad Dog God Dam" and videos for her songs "Bird Flu", "Boyz", "S.U.S. (Save Ur Soul)", "Space" and "XXXO" as well as personally choosing the directors for the videos of her songs "Galang" and "Sunshowers", which she described in and again in as being her favourite video experience and favourite video adaptation of a song of hers, in her words as of ^[update], "If you watch only one of my videos, please try "Sunshowers", "Jimmy," "Born Free," and "Bad Girls.", a video inspired by YouTube videos of car stunts and photographs, including one of an Arab female trucker, from the Middle East,^[] which she described as her second favourite music video.^[][] She directed a video for Rye Rye's "Bang".^[][] She judged in the Music Video category at the inaugural Vimeo Festival & Awards in New York in October ^[]

M.I.A. released her second mixtape, Vicki Leekx, on 31 December , and followed this with Internet Connection: The Remixes, an EP to a bonus track from Maya in January ^[] M.I.A. performed on the song "C.T.F.O." on SebastiAn's album Total. On 21 April , it was reported that M.I.A. had been in the studio with Chris Brown, the Cataracs, Swizz Beatz and Polow da Don.^[] On 24 July , the day after Amy Winehouse's death, M.I.A. uploaded a previously-unreleased Maya/Vicki Leekxdemo titled "27" to her SoundCloud account. The song was released as a tribute to the 27 Club.^[][]

– Matangi

M.I.A. co-wrote the song "Give Me All Your Luvin'" with Madonna and Nicki Minaj for the album MDNA and performed it at the Super Bowl XLVIhalftime show. Controversially, instead of singing the lyric "shit" in the song, M.I.A. extended the middle finger to the camera. The NFL responded by filing a lawsuit suing M.I.A. for millions in damages and demanding a public apology from M.I.A.^[] Maya and her legal team also responded by saying that the league's claim of "wholesomeness" in the lawsuit is hypocritical since the NFL itself has had multiple situations of their own players and coaches behaving badly as well as health problems within the league, particularly concussions.^[] In September Maya released a video statement regarding the lawsuit.^[] In her statement Arulpragasam said, "They're basically [saying] it's OK for me to promote being sexually exploited as a female, than to display empowerment, female empowerment, through being punk rock. That's what it boils down to, and I'm being sued for it."^[] The lawsuit was settled in August ; the terms of the settlement remain private.^[]

M.I.A. is also featured in "B-Day Song", another song included on MDNA.^[][][]

The first buzz track of her fourth album, "Bad Girls", taken from her Vicki Leekx mixtape, premiered on 30 January , was released globally the day after, and was followed by a music video directed by Romain Gavras on 3 February From her documentary Matangi/Maya/M.I.A., she revealed that she did not know Madonna planned to release the music video for "Give Me All Your Luvin'", about 10 minutes apart on the same day she would release "Bad Girls" (cited from Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. by Steve Loveridge, , at ). This received nominations for Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards and at the 55th Grammy Awards.^[] The song became one of M.I.A.'s most successful singles, charting in the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Canada, United States, Switzerland, South Korea and Belgium. On 29 April she posted a preview of a new song to YouTube, titled "Come Walk With Me".^[] The full version of Come Walk With Me was shared one and a half year later, in September ^[]

M.I.A. officially signed to Jay-Z's Roc Nation management in May ^[][] Rihanna welcomed her to the family, tweeting, "welcome home MIA."^[] She guested during Jay-Z's set at the Radio 1 Festival in Hackney on 23 June

In October , M.I.A. released an autobiographical book titled M.I.A. documenting "the five years of M.I.A. art that spans across three LPs: Arular, Kala, and Maya."^[36] The book contains artwork as well as a foreword by frequent collaborator Steve Loveridge and various essays by M.I.A. On 3 March , she released an 8-minute mix recording as part of a Kenzo fashion show in Paris.^[]

Matangi, was recorded across the world with different collaborators. In relation to her previous albums, she described her fourth as "basically all of them together", akin to an anthology.^[] The album was released on Interscope and M.I.A.'s label N.E.E.T. Recordings.^[] Release dates of 31 January ^[] and later, 15 April ^[] were announced, but the album remained unreleased.^[] M.I.A. later revealed that the original project for Matangi was not accepted by Interscope, which claimed that the record was "too positive".^[] "Bring the Noize", produced by French producer Surkin and Switch,^[] was announced as the second single and was released on 17 June Soon after the single was released, the official video for "Bring the Noize" premiered on 25 June via Noisey.^[] On 9 August , the album received an official release date of 5 November after M.I.A. threatened to leak the album due to the numerous delays by Interscope.^[]

Matangi received generally positive reviews from music critics. In its first week of release, the album sold 15, copies and peaked at number 23 on the Billboard , falling to number 90 in its second week.^[]

On 31 December , M.I.A. announced that she was leaving Roc Nation.^[]

– AIM and Matangi/Maya/M.I.A

On 13 July , M.I.A. released a five-minute video titled "Matahdatah Scroll 01 Broader Than a Border" which features two of her tracks: Matangi's "Warrior" and a new track "Swords". The music is sampled from Yo Yo Honey Singh's Manali Trance. The video was filmed in India and West Africa and shows different forms of dancing in those regions.

On 27 November , M.I.A. released "Borders" as her new single on iTunes, prior to that her new single was announced via her Instagram account. Serving as both a rallying cry and a call for compassion, the track mocks first world problems and shares her views on the escalating global refugee crisis.^[] The self-directed video that accompanied its release^[] shows her joining "those attempting to flee their homes by cramming on boats, wading in the ocean and climbing barbed-wire fences".^[] In January , the French football club Paris Saint-Germain sued M.I.A. for wearing a version of their club's T-shirt in her "Borders" video that changed the words "Fly Emirates" to "Fly Pirates".^[][]

In late February , she released "Boom ADD", an expanded version of the "Boom Skit", which appeared on M.I.A.'s fourth studio album Matangi; it is a diss-track to the NFL's lawsuit of her performance at the Super Bowl XLVI.^[] On 9 September , she released her fifth studio album AIM to mixed reviews, with "Poc Still A Ryda", a lyrical mix of the songs on the album, preceding the album's release.^[] On 8 February , she released a new song, along with a music video, entitled "P.O.W.A", a previously unreleased song from her recording sessions for AIM.^[][]

In , Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. was released, a minute documentary film chronicling M.I.A.'s rise to fame and political activism surrounding the Sri Lankan Civil War.^[] Directed and produced by Steve Loveridge, the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and later saw a wide release in select theatres in the U.K. and the U.S. in September ^[][] The film won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award at Sundance.^[] Following the film's release on digital platforms in December , M.I.A. premiered the official music video for "Reload", a previously-unreleased song originally written with Justine Frischmann in for Arular, which appears on the film's soundtrack.^[]

–present: Mata

On 31 January , M.I.A launched a Patreon page to fund new music, saying that her new album is "nearly finished".^[] On 22 March , M.I.A. released "OHMNI ", her first song in three years, and suggested that a new record would arrive the same year.^[] On 9 September, she shared a standalone song titled "CTRL" on her website.^[] She was featured alongside Young Thug on the single "Franchise" by rapper Travis Scott, which was released on 25 September ^[] The song debuted at number one on the US Billboard Hot , earning M.I.A. her first number-one single on the chart.^[]

On 1 November , M.I.A. announced in an Instagram post that her sixth album is called Mata. As to the concept of the album, she described it as a way "to reflect who I am, what we want to build."^[]

M.I.A. released a single titled "Babylon" on Friday, 12 November. The single was released alongside the rappers mixtape Vicki Leekx, sold as NFTs to raise money for the Courage Foundation.^[] An accompanying music video was released on her website and features video footage of Arulpragasam earlier in her life.^[]

On 26 May , M.I.A. shared the lead single from Mata on The Zane Lowe Show, titled "The One".^[] The second single from the album, "Popular", was released on 12 August along with its official music video. Mata was released on 14 October

In December the mixtape Bells Collection appeared.^[] A single, "Armour" was released in January ^[]

Artistry

Musical style and influences

M.I.A.'s music features styles such as electro, reggae, rhythm and blues, alternative rock, hip hop, grime, rapballads and Asian folk and references to her musical influences such as Missy Elliott, Tamil film music, Lou Reed, the Pixies, Timbaland, Beastie Boys, and London Posse.^{[34][37][48][]} She was a childhood fan of Boney M, composer A. R. Rahman and pop artists Michael Jackson and Madonna,^[24][37] also she has cited Björk as an inspiration and has been influenced by The Slits, Public Enemy, Malcolm McLaren and The Clash.^[34][] Noting her early inspirations, she said "When I would go to bed, I'd listen to the radio and dream about dancing and Paula Abdul and Whitney Houston, and that's how I fell asleep. When my radio was burgled, I started listening to hip hop".^[24] She has revealed her ideal karaoke song would be "Germ-Free Adolescents" by X-Ray Spex.^[] M.I.A. describes her music as dance music or club music for the "other", and has been described as an "anti-popstar" for refusing to conform to certain recording industry expectations of solo artists.^[67] M.I.A.'s early compositions relied heavily on the Roland MC, while later M.I.A. experimented further with her established sound and drew from a range of genres, creating layered textures of instruments, electronics and sounds outside the traditional studio environment.^[67][68]

Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of M.I.A.'s American distribution label Interscope, compares M.I.A. to Reed and punk rock songwriter Patti Smith, and recalled, "She's gonna do what she's gonna do, I can't tell her shit."^[] "The really left-of-center artists, you really wonder about them. Can the world catch up? Can the culture meet them in the middle? That's what the adventure is. It doesn't always happen, but it should and it could."^[]Richard Russell, head of XL Recordings, states, "You've got to bend culture around to suit you, and I think M.I.A has done that" adding that M.I.A.'s composition and production skills were a major attraction for him.^[][] As a vocalist, M.I.A. is recognisable by her distinctive whooping, chanting voice, which has been described as having an "indelible, nursery-rhyme swing."^[56] She has adopted different singing styles on her songs, from aggressive raps, to semi-spoken and melodic vocals. She has said of the sometimes "unaffected" vocals and delivery of her lyrics, "It is what it is. Most people would just put it down to me being lazy. But at the same time, I don't want [that perfection]," saying some of the "raw and difficult" vocal styles she used reflected what was happening to her during recording.^[24][65]

Public image and stage

Critic Sasha Frere-Jones, writing for The New Yorker in , praised the self-made "unpretentious, stuck together with Scotch tape" style that M.I.A. achieves with her Roland MC drum machine and keyboard unit, noting that several artists had tried to emulate the style since.^[] Her considerable influence on American hip hop music as an international artist is described by Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois in The Anthology of Rap as making her an "unlikely" hip hop celebrity, given that the genre was one of several influences behind M.I.A.'s "eccentric and energizing" music and that the musician's unclassifiable sound was one example of how hip hop was changing as it came into contact with other cultures.^[] Similarly, Jeffrey H. Wallenfeldt writes in The Black Experience in America&#;: From Civil Rights to the Present that no single artist may have personified hip hop in the 21st century better than M.I.A., in her "politically radical lyrics drawing from widely diverse sources around the world".^[]

The Guardian critic Hattie Collins commented of M.I.A.'s influence: "A new raver before it was old. A baile funk/pop pioneer before CSS and Bonde do Rolê emerged. A quirky female singer/rapper before the Mini Allens had worked out how to log on to MySpace. Missing In Action (or Acton, as she sometimes calls herself) has always been several miles ahead of the pack."^[] The twisting of western modalities in her music style using multilingual, multiethnic soundscapes to make electroclash-pop albums is noted by Derek Beres in Global beat fusion: the history of the future of music () to defy world music categorisation.^[] In the book Downloading Music (), Linda Aksomitis notes the various aspects of peer-to-peer file sharing of music in the rise in popularity of M.I.A., including the advantages and disadvantages of the internet and platforms such as MySpace in the launch of her career.^[] Andy Bennett and Jon Stratton explore in Britpop and the English Music Tradition () how M.I.A. alongside musicians such as Sway and Dizzee Rascal created music that both explored new soundscapes and commented on social issues as well. Bennett and Stratton argue that the innovation that generates new musical genres such as grime and dubstep are, inevitably, political in nature. The success of grime-influenced artists such as M.I.A. is analyzed as a way in which white Britons adapted to the increasingly multicultural musical mix, which they compare with bands of the Britpop genre.^[] Furthermore, her work being used as a global resource for the articulation of differently located themes and its connections to many music traditions is noted by Brian Longhurst in Popular music and society () to illustrate such processes of interracial dialogue.^[]Gary Shteyngart writing in GQ notes that "M.I.A. is perhaps the preeminent global musical artist of the s, a truly kick-ass singer and New York-Londony fashion icon, not to mention a vocal supporter of Sri Lanka's embattled Tamil minority, of which she's a member."^[]

M.I.A.'s stage performances are described as "highly energetic" and multimedia showcases, often with scenes of what Rolling Stone critic Rob Sheffield describes as "jovial chaos, with dancers and toasters and random characters roaming the stage," bringing various crowds with interests in art, music and fashion.^[] Camille Dodero, writing in The Village Voice opined that M.I.A. "works hard to manifest the chaos of her music in an actual environment, and, more than that, to actively create discomfort, energy, and anger through sensory overload."^[] Her role as an artist in and voice lender to the subaltern is appreciated by theorists as having brought such ideas to first world view.^[][][][]USA Today included her on its list of the Most Interesting People of and she was named one of Time Out's 40th Birthday London Heroes in The same year, Esquire listed M.I.A. as one of the 75 Most Influential People of the 21st century, describing her as the first and only major artist in world music, and in she was cited in Time magazine's Time as one of the world's most influential people for her global influence across many genres.^[34][][][] In December , USA Today listed M.I.A. at number 63 on its list of the " People of ".^[] M.I.A. placed number 14 on Rolling Stone's Decade-End Readers' Poll of "Top Artists Of The Decade."^[]Rolling Stone named her one of eight artists who defined the s decade.^[]

Themes and artwork

M.I.A. has become known for integrating her imagery of political violence with her music videos and her cover art. Her politically inspired art became recognised while she exhibited and published several of her brightly coloured stencils and paintings portraying the tiger, a symbol of Tamil nationalism, ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and urban Britain in the early s. Lyrics on Arular regarding her experiences of identity politics, poverty, revolution, gender and sexual stereotypes, war, and the conditions of working class in London were hailed as new and unorthodox, setting her apart from previous artists.^[35][48] The album references the PLO and the Tamil independence movements and features culture jamming, multi-lingual slang, strident and subtle imagery. Her albums' social commentary and storytelling have incited debate on the "invigoratingly complex" politics of the issues she highlighted in the album, breaking taboos while the US Military was engaged in the Iraq War in the Middle East during the Bush administration.^[13][47][][] Government visits to her official website following her debut album's release in , and a US refusal to grant M.I.A. a travel visa coupled with her brief presence on the US Homeland Security Risk List in due to her politically charged lyrics led to her second album Kala being recorded in a variety of locations around the world.^[14][][][] The American Civil Liberties Union described the actions as part of a trend of ideological exclusion by the state which was detrimental to democracy by "censoring and manipulating debate".^[][] In October , she revealed on her Instagram that she had finally been approved for a US visa.^[][]

On Kala, M.I.A.'s songs explored immigration politics and her personal relationships. Many related her experiences during recording sessions in Madras, Angola, Trinidad shantytowns, Liberia and London, and were acclaimed.^[35][66] The album's artwork was inspired by African art, "from dictator fashion to old stickers on the back of cars", which like her clothing range, she hoped would capture "a 3-D sense, the shapes, the prints, the sound, film, technology, politics, economics" of a certain time.^[]I-D magazine described the "bleeding cacophony of graphics" on her website during this time as evoking the "noisy amateurism" of the early web, but also embodying a rejection of today's "glossy, professional site design" which was felt to "efface the medium rather than celebrate it."^[]Jeff Chang, writing for The Nation, described a "Kala for the Nation" and the album's music, lyrics and imagery as encompassing "everywhere—or, to be specific, everywhere but the First World's self-regarding 'here'", stating that against a media flow that suppresses the "ugliness" of reality and fixes beauty to consumption, M.I.A. forces a conversation about how the majority live, closing the distance "between 'here' and everywhere else". He felt that Kala explored poverty, violence and globalisation through the eyes of "children left behind."^[]

Her third album, Maya, tackled information politics in the digital age, loaded with technological references and love songs, and deemed by Kitty Empire writing in The Observer to be her most melancholic and mainstream effort.^[] Her genocide-depicting video for the single "Born Free" was deemed by Ann Powers writing in the Los Angeles Times to be "concentrating fully" on the physical horror of gun butts and bullets hitting flesh, with the scenes giving added poignancy to the lyrical themes of the song.^[] Interpreted as a comment on the Arizona immigration law, America's military might and desensitised attitudes towards violence, others found that the video stressed that genocide still exists and violent repression remains commonplace.^[] Some critics described the film as "sensationalist". Neda Ulaby of NPR described the video as intended for "shock value" in the service of nudging people into considering real issues that can be hard to talk about.^[][][] M.I.A. revealed that she felt "disconnected" during the writing process, and spoke of the Internet inspiration and themes of information politics that could be found in the songs and the artwork.^[][]

M.I.A. views her work as reflective, pieced together in one piece "so you can acquire it and hear it." She states, "All that information floats around where we are—the images, the opinions, the discussions, the feelings—they all exist, and I felt someone had to do something about it because I can't live in this world where we pretend nothing really matters."^[18] On the political nature of her songs she has said, "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."^[]Censorship on MTV of "Sunshowers" proved controversial and was again criticised following the Kala release "Paper Planes".^[18][] YouTube's block and subsequent age gating/obscuring of the video for "Born Free" from Maya due to its graphic violence/political subtext was criticised by M.I.A. as hypocritical, citing the Internet channel's streaming of real-life killings.^[12][][] She went on to state, "It's just fake blood and ketchup and people are more offended by that than the execution videos", referring to clips of Sri Lankan troops extrajudicially shooting unarmed, blindfolded, naked men that she had previously tweeted.^[12] Despite the block, the video remained on her website and Vimeo, and has been viewed 30&#;million times on the internet.^[][] Lisa Weems writes in the book Postcolonial challenges in education how M.I.A. pointed out in her music how immigrants, refugees and persons of the third world can and do resist through economic, political and cultural discursive practices.^[] In light of her influence in modern culture and the historical and political significance embedded in both the instrumental music and lyrics of her songs, J. Gentry of Brown University instructs a course from summer titled "Music & Politics: From Mozart to M.I.A.", with the objective of academically exploring and examining the political messages and contexts of music and the way "music has consistently participated in and reflected the political debates of its time".^[]

Fashion and style

M.I.A. cites guerrilla art and fashion as major influences. Her mother works as a seamstress in London. An early interest in fashion and textiles–designing confections of "bright fluorescent fishnet fabrics"—was a hallmark of her time at Central Saint Martins College. M.I.A. was a roommate of fashion designer Luella Bartley and is a long-time friend of designer Carri Mundane.^[][] Clothes from her limited-edition "Okley Run" line—Mexican and Afrika line jackets and leggings, Islamic-inspired and water melon-print hoodies, and tour-inspired designs–were sold in during New York fashion week.^[35][