M.I.A.: Likeness

M.I.A. is British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.

M.I.A.: 76 quotes0 likes

“Yeah manmade power
Stood like a tower
Higher Higher, Hello
And the higher you go
you feel lower, oh
I was close to the edge
Staying undercover, staying undercover
And with my nose to the ground
I found my Sound”

M.I.A.

Born Free
Lyrics, /\/\ /\ Y /\ (2010)

“I feel the reason why I'm 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 it's all been survival from then on. And that's the reality for thousands - and millions - of people today. Why should I get censored for talking about a life that half the time I didn't choose to live?”

M.I.A.

Interview http://www.popmatters.com/music/interviews/mia-050506.shtml with PopMatters, 2005 Sourced quotes

“It's good. You know, it's nice coming out and actually meeting all your fans - you make this thing in your bedroom and you don't really know who is going to get it or relate to it or anything, you know? And you just pour your heart out kind of thing, and then you find out you relate to people and that's the final process of it. You know, to meet people who are actually like you and that you connect with, you know what I mean? That's kind of cool. That's the best thing about touring.”

M.I.A.

On touring during Interview http://web.archive.org/web/20070926225407/http://www.muchmusic.com/music/artists/transcripts.asp?artist=1213 on MuchMusic's MuchonDemand (September 2005) Sourced quotes

“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.”

M.I.A.

Interview http://niralimagazine.com/2004/10/not-so-missing-in-action/ with Nirali magazine (October 2004) Sourced quotes

“They wanted me to be the face of Coca Cola. I was like 'Wow. Have you guys got any idea what you’re talking about?' Then Pepsi called me the next week. My mother-in-law called me and said 'Oh my God, Maya, they’re offering you so much money.”

M.I.A.

Quote on corporate sponsorship http://www.nme.com/photos/in-her-own-words-mias-20-sharpest-quotes/172930/16/4#5 reprinted in NME (2010) Sourced quotes

“I don't know which is worse. The fact that I saw it in my life has maybe given me lots of issues, but there's 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 don't. Not having a proper understanding of violence, especially what it's like on the receiving end of it, just makes you interpret it wrong and makes inflicting violence easier.”

M.I.A.

Interview http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=253248 to Complex magazine (2010) Sourced quotes

“The Third World deserves freedom of speech just like everyone else. We want to fight the battle to say what we want, whether to be serious or just make fun of ourselves. That's what "Worldtown" is about, that's what "Paper Planes" is about. It's what people in the third world live through.”

M.I.A.

Quote reprinted http://www.nme.com/photos/in-her-own-words-mias-20-sharpest-quotes/172930/16/4 in NME Sourced quotes

“Can I get Control?
Do you like me Vulnerable?
I'm armed and I'm equal
More fun for the people…”

M.I.A.

Bucky Done Gun
Lyrics, Arular (2005)

“When I come back to London, I feel really safe and familiar. But sometimes I feel like I'm on standby, waiting to go somewhere else – where something else is happening.”

M.I.A.

Interview http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/62231-a-new-global-gathering#ixzz1iETO5ryn to Metro (2007) Sourced quotes

“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 wasn't 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 don't 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”

M.I.A.

Interview http://www.desiclub.com/desimusic/desimusic_features/music_article.cfm?id=202 (2006) Sourced quotes

“M. I. A.: If he were a pop star, he’d be, like, Prince or something.”

M.I.A.

Sourced quotes, Interview with Romain Gavras for Interview (2010)

“I bongo with my Lingo,
Beat it like a wing yo
From Congo to Columbo,
Can't sterotype my thing yo”

M.I.A.

Sunshowers
Lyrics, Arular (2005)

“I call bullshit on any system that holds me down. If the system changed my life the way it did and it totally abused my life and my family, then I’m willing to stand up against it. My goal is to bring people into the system. If I have to use some shocking imagery or if I have to use some honest up-front language to get in and wake people up, so be it. At least, it has sparked up some discussion and young people feel like they have the right to talk. That’s all you can hope for, to induce discussion and then make people feel like they have the right to discuss political issues.”

M.I.A.

Interview http://web.archive.org/web/20081013151929/http://www.egothemag.com/archives/2005/04/mia.htm to EGO Magazine (2005) Sourced quotes

“I used to see songwriting like editing a film or something. You can edit music like you can edit a film. Or if I was painting or making a picture or something, that night I could sit down and write a song. I think it really helps to break things up. Sometimes when you sit down to write songs, you write three or four songs in a row feeling the same sort of vibe. But if you stop in-between that time and change something, you break the pattern – you prevent yourself from unconsciously falling into a format.”

M.I.A.

Interview http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2008/05/qa_with_mia.php to Westword (2008) Sourced quotes

“M. I. A.: He looks like he always has gel in it. Hold on. [to taxi driver] Can you pull over, please? I’m at Notting Hill Gate station.”

M.I.A.

Sourced quotes, Interview with Romain Gavras for Interview (2010)

“I think I just kind of thought about all the artists that I really respected throughout the - just any genre of music really and I think everybody that I respected and liked. They were just them. You know, they're people who always stuck to who they were, and were true and honest about who they were. So I think that kind of gave me a real like confidence to just stick at it. Just thinking about people like Bjork - you know, I don't know, Bob Dylan, you know artists that truly were strong in themselves.”

M.I.A.

M.I.A. Interview http://web.archive.org/web/20070926225407/http://www.muchmusic.com/music/artists/transcripts.asp?artist=1213 on MuchMusic's MuchOnDemand (September 2005). Sourced quotes

“I can sing about songs with gunshots in the background because I heard them. It's almost like my music has been a way to smoke out the hatred that's been bubbling underneath what's going on in Sri Lanka. If there's 300,000 people who are trapped and they're dying, it should be talked about, it should be brought to the table, and I don't see anything wrong in sticking up for 300,000 dying people.”

M.I.A.

Video Interview http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894410_1894780_1894784,00.html to TIME (2009) Sourced quotes

“I performed at a show at the MoMA. There was this big dinner there, and I was seated in this hall with the mayor of New York and all these extremely wealthy art-supporting and art-buying people. There was a piece of work hanging in the hall-it was a fan. This fan was supposed to swing by the momentum of its own propeller. So, while we were having dinner, the fan was stopped, and the guy next to me, a curator at P. S.1, said, "Look, this is what art symbolizes today." Like, that piece of art is supposed to be moving, but just to have dinner we've stopped the art. That's what New York is like today. You can't have real art happen in an institution because rich people can make the world stop. The stuff on the street is a lot more interesting.”

M.I.A.

Interview http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/kehinde-wiley/#page2 with Kehinde Wiley on the "recycled object" for Interview magazine (2008) Sourced quotes

“I'm 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.”

M.I.A.

Quote http://www.nme.com/photos/in-her-own-words-mias-20-sharpest-quotes/172930/16/4#10 from interview with NME (2010) Sourced quotes