Now, [hip-hop/grime artists] Stormzy, Skepta, or the Section Boyz have to be validated by Drake, Rihanna or Beyoncé. They're rolled into this one urban culture bubble; it's not really to do with, "I'm specifically f - ked off about my country and what's going on in my town." We're very much only showing success to artists who impress American artists, and I'm one of them.

M.I.A.

Categorized in : Country Artist Hip Hop

If right now, culture's so divisive, it just leaves these million... by M.I.A.

If right now, culture's so divisive, it just leaves these millions of people like me out.

like-me culture people

Somebody told me that if you wake up every day and do stuff that's easy, then you're doing the wrong thing. If you wake up every day and do stuff that's really hard and you manage to get through to people, then you're doing the right thing. They might have just fooled me by telling me that, but it worked. I think that's my philosophy.

philosophy people thinking

I feel like a mirror reflecting back everyones perception of me. by M.I.A.

I feel like a mirror reflecting back everyones perception of me.

reflecting-back perception mirrors

Confidence takes constant nurturing, like a bed, it must be remad... by M.I.A.

Confidence takes constant nurturing, like a bed, it must be remade every day.

nurturing constant bed

Instead of going to war, we should put the money into arts and culture and let creative people define what Britain is.

war people art

I don't have a community like a black community to belong to [with] a musical platform that's been built for years and years and years, or the film-making culture, and I don't have the white one to belong to.

community white years

I fly like paper, get high like planes by M.I.A.

I fly like paper, get high like planes

getting-high hip-hop names

Rage and grief are savage companions, but despair is the final un... by M.I.A.

Rage and grief are savage companions, but despair is the final undoing.

savages despair grief

I hate the idea of street art. With music, I just needed my brain and my voice, which didn't cost anything.

hate ideas art

Even if you're frustrated, how do you express yourself? There's n... by M.I.A.

Even if you're frustrated, how do you express yourself? There's no subculture like back in the day.

back-in-the-day express-yourself frustrated

When I first came out, I was a film student and my mom sewed clothes. I was already doing a million things then, whatever it took to survive. If I had to braid someone's hair to get one pound for my lunch money, that's what I did. But I did it in the most creative way possible.

lunch mom hair

Here we are at the edge of the world, the very edge of Western civilization, and all of us are so desperate to feel something, anything, that we keep falling into each other and f*****g our way toward the end of days.

civilization america fall

I dont like the idea of spirituality done the way its done. The only way I could understand it was through creativity, not by going to an Ashram, or finding a guru or joining a temple. I made work out of it.

creativity work-out ideas

I already feel that I am making a political statement by sticking around in music, when I am doing it so differently to everyone else.

music political feels

I felt pissed off because I realized that you have to teach people in a clichéd way how to be happy-and happiness has become too one thing in American media. Achieving happiness is not really about having a flat stomach and the best car.

car media people

Besides, isn't it more exciting when you don't have permission? by M.I.A.

Besides, isn't it more exciting when you don't have permission?

permission exciting fiction

Nike is the uniform for kids all over the world, and African design has been killed by Nike. Africans no longer want to wear their own designs.

nike design kids

Predominantly in the West, if you can only have creative voices that are either black or white, I'm going to say whatever the f - k I want, because no one's going before you, and if no one's coming after you, I'm just going to be the freakiest of all freaks!

voice creative white

My statements aren't incomplete, they're just in-progress. It's a... by M.I.A.

My statements aren't incomplete, they're just in-progress. It's a debate and a discussion.

debate incomplete progress

Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?

bullshit silence order