M.I.A.

Released: March 22, 2005

Producer: Diplo

[Verse 1]
You can watch TV and watch the media
President Bush doing takeover
Kate Moss in ads for mascara
All my youth the young offender
The bill payers, the drug dealers
Girls who are magazine covers
The part-time jobbers at the call center
No career plans cause you won't go far
Put away change for Ibiza and
Check your credit on your new Nokia

[Chorus]
You can be a follower but who's your leader?
Break the cycle or it will kill ya
You can be a follower but who's your leader?
Break the cycle or it will kill ya
You leader, you lead, uh, do what you do
What really good's gonna happen to you?
You leader, you lead, uh, do what you do
What really good's gonna happen to you?

[Verse 2]
Your prime minister to your employer
Ego lovers need more power
Trendsetters make things better
Don't sell out to be product pushers
The gyro casher and baby makers
Try something new cause it ain't over
All poor people from all over
Lottery's got a rollover

[Chorus]
You can be a follower but who's your leader?
Break the cycle or it will kill ya
You can be a follower but who's your leader?
Break the cycle or it will kill ya

[Verse 3]
Cherokee Indian, Iraqi and Indians
Girls and me girls when they come to the fellas and
Japanese, Moroccan, Caribbean, African
That's your life but who the fuck's your president?
You don't get my life cause I don't have a side and I
Spread dat boy 'im a mile wide and I
Got brown skin, I'm a west Londoner
Educated, but a refugee, still
You wanna boy, you're old, you go
You wanna fight, you suck, you blow

[Interlude]
N-n-n-n-nah, n-n-nah, n-nah, n-nah
Nah, nah, nah, nah, n-nah, n-nah
Ay! Ay!

One of the most musically-diverse and perplexing artists of the 2000s, Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam is arguably the decade’s best representation of Hip-Hop in its truest form and artistry in its broadest, most diverse format. Her lyrics are as political as Public Enemy, her sound is more eclectic than Stankonia-era Outkast, and she is as aesthetically-driven as Kanye West.

The road that M.I.A. was forced to travel to international stardom was not an easy one. Born on July 18th, 1975 in Hounslow, West London to Sri-Lankan Tamil immigrants, she moved to her parents' homeland when she was only six months old. However, it was the Sri Lankan Civil War which came to shape her childhood. During her formative years, she witnessed many her father was hunted as an enemy of the state, her schools were bombarded, and her impoverished family was constantly in hiding. In 1986, her family moved back to London to find stability and a sense of relative peace.

In England, she discovered her artistic talents and completed several years of secondary education in fine art – eventually gaining attention as a visual artist, painter, and musician. In the early-2000s, Maya began to seriously explore her musical talents and used the internet and underground radio as the means to build her reputation as a unique and talented firebrand. Amidst her no-nonsense politics, however, critics from around the world heard a talent in the making.

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