Clash Music

M.I.A.

Politically fired UK Grime artist

MIA is in full swing. For an artist now lauded at the frontline of culture clash and representing the globally disenfranchised - though MIA has an interesting disgust for politics - yet once you wander into her world there’s no camouflaging why.

Even before Maya Arulpragasam had learnt to talk she was embroiled in the political and violent furnace of her Tamil father struggling against the Sinhalese majority rule and aiming to bring his people’s plight in Sri Lanka to an international stage.

Growing up in the marginalised territory south of India, being shelled and shot at until she became an 11-year-old toothless refugee has burnt deep a determination which has forged one of the most refreshing and revolutionary figures in modern music.