In 2004, I went onstage for the first time. They put a…

I'd be very controversial if I said why, and I don't do controversial anymore. That's too passé. So last year. Being controversial is boring…

— M.I.A

You have to constantly redefine who you are.

— M.I.A

That's what I miss, being a real human.

— M.I.A

Retirement: a brand new beginning! How wonderful!

— M.I.A

I don't like the idea of spirituality done the way it's done. The only way I could understand it was through creativity, not by…

— M.I.A

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…

— M.I.A

The first 10 years of my life, I lived as 'Matangi.' When I came to England in '86, my first week of school was…

— M.I.A

My uncle was the first brown person to have a market stall on Petticoat Lane in the 1960s. He worked his way up from…

— M.I.A

That divide between the rich and poor is so crazy, because even white kids are suffering now.

— M.I.A

Businessmen in society are not going to be the ones that promote anything outside of money.

— M.I.A

That's what New York is like - you can't have real art happen in an institution because rich people can make the world stop.…

— M.I.A

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

— M.I.A

In England right now you're not good enough until you get validated.

— M.I.A

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

Basically, when I went to school in Sri Lanka from age five onward, the classes there were sometimes sorted into a hierarchy of your…

— M.I.A