M.I.A.

Released: July 23, 2011

Songwriter: M.I.A.

Producer: M.I.A.

[Verse 1]
Said you're all mouth and no brains, all rockstars go to heaven
You said you’ll be dead at 27, when we drunk in a English tavern
The owner poured you the Bourbon, and you drunk yourself so rotten
He got so rich he bought a Bentley, and moved himself to Devon

[Verse 2]
You started dirty dancing, and you bartended a dozen
I took you to the clinic, to get you clean but you couldn’t
Said in 2 days you're 27, and and your destiny was comin'
And your papa passed so sudden, and left you with a little somethin'

[Verse 3]
You blew that money on a mountain of drugs, and staged your self a bed in
A month later when I popped in, you're still high but the winter set in
I bought you a coffee and a muffin, and you quoted me some Lenin
I wished I was that clever, but that's what kept me coming
Your friendship did mean somethin', but you left me for nothin'
When I left, you befriended a rope, and I found you both were hanging

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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