M.I.A.

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

"No one ever gives those kids the microphone and says, Tell us, what the fuck is going on. They dont 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 feel the reason why Im 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 its all been survival from then on. And thats the reality for thousands - and millions - of people today. Why should I get censored for talking about a life that half the time I didnt choose to live?"

"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."

"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 wasnt 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 dont 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"

"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."

"I didnt 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 arent 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, Im going to make an album about how its 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 dont know which is worse. The fact that I saw it in my life has maybe given me lots of issues, but theres 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 dont. Not having a proper understanding of violence, especially what its like on the receiving end of it, just makes you interpret it wrong and makes inflicting violence easier."

"I feel like Im 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 Im truly falling in love with music in its own right."

"I have to be true to that - I cant 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?"

"Im 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."

"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."