It could be the sort of declining grip of the American MTV-nation culture-the fact that MTV doesn't play so much music anymore. M.I.A. More Quotes by M.I.A. More Quotes From M.I.A. 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. hip-hopartistcountry I come from a generation where you put the art out and had the luxury to sit back and watch the world deconstruct it, and that was valued. Unfortunately now the work lives in a weird context. M.I.A. luxurywatchesart Everything I think seems to be controversial, so I feel like I need to just go away for a second and put it all down on paper until the storm passes. M.I.A. stormgoing-awaythinking You have to have your fashion stylist person not sell out and sell your s - t to another pop star because they can pay them twice as much, and do it for the belief and the love of art. M.I.A. fashionstarsart It's the only thing to do when you're in London - hang out in a taxi. M.I.A. hanging-outtaxi Everyone has that moment where they just rebel. M.I.A. that-momentrebelmoments If music's a political place, I'm out. M.I.A. politicalifs Whoever's inside is inside; whoever's out is out. M.I.A. If you're talking about coexisting and tolerance then you have to live by example, and you can't have shiny people all the time everywhere, which is what breeds that sort of thinking - this is better than this, that is better than that. M.I.A. tolerancepeoplethinking The music industry was invented, like, 100 years ago. I'm talking about the goddess Matangi, who invented music 5,000 years ago. She was the only thing that inspired me. M.I.A. inspiredtalkingyears Any piece of art, when you're putting it on a certain platform, if the platform becomes a political place, you can manipulate things. M.I.A. piecespoliticalart You need everyone to get together and just believe in it, and lead by example that it is possible to be outside the system, and that's really super-f - king hard, and I'm sure there's some geniuses out there who can achieve it. M.I.A. kingstogetherbelieve Art is supposed to be about creativity. But the same people are the same art darlings every month, and it's a bit annoying. It's supposed to be diverse and interesting and conceptual and have weird concepts in a comfortable place. M.I.A. creativitypeopleart I'm still working out my opinions - it's always a question mark. I leave loads of space open, and people don't like that. M.I.A. work-outspacepeople The mentality has taken over because of the way we've promoted things. It's been accepted, to live with fear, and to fear that it's going to be terrible, prepare for the worst. The meat and potato of our existence right now is influenced by what happened after 9/11 - we put our thinking into protecting borders. M.I.A. acceptedtakenthinking Music that was made in the 60s and 70s did come from a really soulful place. The seed for the songs written in the 90s were planted in those songs, even though they were samples. M.I.A. samplemadesong I think when something becomes a comfortable genre, it's against what street art stood for in the beginning - breaking out of genres and taking art out of galleries. Now street art is in the gallery, and it's all made up into a nice, packaged concept. M.I.A. niceartthinking Just make music; don't talk about politics. M.I.A. That's what I miss, being a real human. M.I.A. humansrealmissing I feel like I'm living in the dead weeds of hip-hop. I live in the graveyard of what went wrong with hip-hop. M.I.A. hipship-hopweed
