M.I.A.

It is a coincidence that Mathangi is the Goddess of Music and the spoken word, which can be rap.

Versace designs have always been bootlegged. Now it's Versace bootlegging the bootleg for the bootleggers to bootleg the bootleg.

My uncle was the first brown person to have a market stall on Petticoat Lane in the 1960s. He worked his way up from the street. He was homeless, but eventually he got a car so he could sell from the boot. And by the 1980s, he was a millionaire wholesaling to companies like Topshop. So in a way, fashion put me in England.

I don't support terrorism and never have. As a Sri Lankan that fled war and bombings, my music is the voice of the civilian refugee.

My record label always says you shouldn't talk about money because it makes people extremely uncomfortable. Refugees can't talk about money. Rappers can talk about money; refugees can't talk about money.

As an artist, you want to play around with mediums and see if you can get the point across in different way.

When I started off in England, HMV or Tower Records would come to meetings and be, like, 'We just don't know what this genre is.' I don't really fit in between Rihanna and Beyonce.

Human beings around the world have to be taught to go, 'Tamil equals Tamil civilians first, and the Tamil Tiger is a separate thing.' And both of those groups are different. It's like a square and a circle.

Sri Lanka is an island off the coast of India. There's two ethnicities there; one the Sinhalese, which is the majority and the government, and the minority, who are the Tamils. That's where I'm from. And my lifetime sort of began there; I spent 10 years, and I was there during when the war started and fled as a refugee to England.

I feel like a mirror reflecting back everyone's perception of me.

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.

Manhattan seems pretty developed, you know what I mean? Like, it has peaked in culture.

You have to constantly redefine who you are.

In India, you see the way they embrace color in the culture - it's very celebratory of the existence of color. There's no rule of what color belongs together or doesn't belong together. They're not precious about it. It's very full-on.

I have no ties to my dad. I had no communications with him; it didn't shape who I am or anything like that. I'm actually a product of my mom.

Matangi's mantra is aim, which is MIA backwards. She fights for freedom of speech and stands for truth, and lives in the ghetto because her dad was the first person in Hindu mythology who came from the 'hood, but had gained enlightenment through not being a Brahmin.

I don't intentionally go: 'Ooh, what is provocative,' and try to do that. I just do stuff, and people go: 'Ooh, that's provocative.'

I don't think immigrants are that threatening to society at all. They're just happy they've survived some war somewhere.

You have, in America, you have gang signs. Well, 5,000 years ago, there was thing called a mudra, which is your sitting position when you do yoga or you're meditating or you're praying or whatever. And there's not a lot of them that are named after gods and goddesses, but the middle-finger is specifically named the Matangi mudra.

I am the bridge between the East and the West. I don't want to abandon one for the other.