Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam — better known as M.I.A. — is both rebel and scholar, educator and trickster, masterfully courting controversy. She just grabbed headlines by tweeting a New York Times writer’s phone number. But what message is she sending?
Before the release of her third album, ///Y/ (a.k.a. MAYA), Nylon, The New York Times Magazine, Complex, and NME all jockeyed for a few moments with the megastar and mother, framing her work and past controversies through a variety of prisms. But who exactly is M.I.A., and what does she want to accomplish? After reading more than fifteen pages across various outlets, the answer remains elusive.
Some of the confusion is part of Arulpragasam’s master plan in the making. Fond of toying with themes of war and politics mashed up with danceable pop beats and color splashed videos, M.I.A. has been a whirlwind of hype, talent, and controversy since she first appeared on the scene. Her politically charged childhood is often manifested in her support for the Tamil Tigers, though her father (the family revolutionary) helped to found a separate organization, The Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students (EROS). This has led to considerable controversy, including articles and artists decrying M.I.A.’s political stance. However, she has remained popular, an offbeat creative force who is almost never described as a musician, but always deemed an artist.
The NYT piece — written by Lynn Hirschberg — appears concerned with exposing the various inconsistencies with M.I.A.’s persona. The interview takes place at the tony Beverly Wilshire Hotel and the author wastes no opportunity to juxtapose the plush surroundings with M.I.A.’s narratives:
In one of many contradictions that seem to provide the narrative for Maya’s life and art, Ikhyd was not, as she had repeatedly announced he would be, born at home in a pool of water. As usual, she wanted to transform her personal life into a political statement. “You gotta embrace the pain, embrace the struggle,” she proclaimed weeks before Ikhyd was born. “And my giving birth is nothing when I think about all the people in Sri Lanka that have to give birth in a concentration camp.”
As it happened, Maya, who is 34, gave birth in a private room in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. “Ben’s family insisted,” she told me a year later.
Hirschberg’s article is thorough and interesting, and engages with a major part of M.I.A.’s conflicted image: is she truly a revolutionary using her art to draw attention to ongoing conflicts, or is she co-opting a complex struggle in order to sell records? Either way, Hirschberg carefully frames her narrative around moments like this one:
Unity holds no allure for Maya – she thrives on conflict, real or imagined. “I kind of want to be an outsider,” she said, eating a truffle-flavored French fry. “I don’t want to make the same music, sing about the same stuff, talk about the same things. If that makes me a terrorist, then I’m a terrorist.”
The article documents Arulpragasam’s birth, her early years in America, and her desperate plea to get into film school:
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