M.I.A.: Quotes about music

“OK, let's go and explore the rest of the world, and how easy is it to put together music through found objects and stuff, and people, and ideas and certain electricity, certain environments.”

M.I.A.

Interview http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/m-i-a-s-global-party-the-futuristic-pop-star-on-her-decades-journey-20091229#ixzz1i1EWoIDV on Kala to Rolling Stone (2009)
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People , World , Music , Idea

“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)
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Music , Dance

“I saw firsthand where the music we made ended up. It turned up in sterile bullshit clubs in LA, separated from the spirit we made it in.”

M.I.A.

Quote on her decision to ditch party music on /\/\ /\ Y /\ http://www.nme.com/photos/in-her-own-words-mias-20-sharpest-quotes/172930/16/4#6 reprinted in NME (2010)
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Music

“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)
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World , Music , Motivation , Idea

“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)
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Music , Feeling , Thinking , Change

“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).
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People , Music , Confidence , Thinking

“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)
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People , Music , Way , Singing

“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)
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People , Music , Feeling

“I haven't heard honesty in music for so long and this is how I feel, and this is what I think. You don't even have to say words … I was just being as raw as possible. I wanted to make music that you felt in your gut.”

M.I.A.

Archive Interview http://tamilnation.co/diaspora/unitedkingdom/mia.htm to Eye Weekly (January 2005)
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Music , Feeling , Thinking