The Next Best Thing! M.I.A.
She’s no gangsta, but Maya Arulpragasam could teach American MCs a thing or two about the hard-knock life. “I know what it’s like to live in a little village under attack by machines that are dropping bombs at 29 shells per second,” says the Sri Lankan rapper who calls herself M.I.A. Between sips of orange juice at a sun-soaked Manhattan street café, she adds, “I know what it feels like to be shot at, when all you have is a loaf of bread to survive on.”Born in 1976, M.I.A. was 7 when civil war between the Sinhalese and an ethnic minority called the Tamils broke out. M.I.A., a Tamil, fled to London with her mother, sister and brother in 1986.
In London, M.I.A. instantly gravitated toward music. “It was the only thing I had. At school, I did a dance performance to Run-DMC’s ‘Mary Mary’,” she says. The performance turned her from outcast into class hero: “Suddenly, it wasn’t about whether I could speak English or if I was a refugee.”
M.I.A. eventually enrolled at a prestigious art school, which led to a flurry of creativity.
In 2001, a year after she graduated, she returned to Sri Lanka to shoot documentary footage — a way of coming to terms with her childhood trauma. She also painted (Jude Law was among her patrons) and, in 2002, began making music. The result is her debut, Arular, led by the thundering, nonsensical club hit “Galang.”
While some tracks reflect M.I.A.’s experiences of violence and alienation, most aim to get asses shaking. “I’m just sick of people staring at their shoes and wanting to slit their wrists,” she says with a laugh.
