M.I.A. (born July 18, 1975, London, England) is a British-born Sri Lankan rapper who achieved global fame with politically charged dance music.
Although Arulpragasam was born in London, she spent much of her childhood in northern Sri Lanka. When the civil war between the Tamil minority in the north and the Sinhalese government in the south intensified in the 1980s, her father joined the militant Tamil Tigers, and the rest of her family fled Sri Lanka, eventually returning to London. There Arulpragasam studied visual arts, often creating works that were influenced by the conflict she had witnessed as a child. She received her first exposure to the music industry as the graphic designer for the British pop punk group Elastica, and she familiarized herself with the recording equipment used by dance music producers.
Dubbing herself M.I.A., she recorded the single “Galang” in 2003. Although only 500 copies of the song were pressed, it became an instant hit in the European club scene, and word spread quickly on the Internet about its unique fusion of politically aware world music, bass-infused hip-hop, and South London dancehall patois. Anticipation of a full-length album intensified among her fans with the release of Piracy Funds Terrorism, a 2004 mixtape produced with American producer Diplo. Although segments of M.I.A.’s 2005 debut album had been circulating on the Internet for almost a year, its release was still greeted with much critical interest. The album title, Arular, was the name her father adopted while a Tamil Tiger, and the album cover featured M.I.A.’s face surrounded by a collage of cartoon tanks and AK-47s. The compilation was a huge success on the club circuit, based on the strength of singles such as “Galang” and “Bucky Done Gun,” and M.I.A.’s politics lent a new gravity to the dance music genre. M.I.A.’s second album, Kala, was released in 2007, and it featured guest production appearances by Diplo and American hip-hop icon Timbaland. More aggressive and sample-heavy than its predecessor, Kala spawned the hit “Paper Planes,” which catapulted to success when it was used in the theatrical trailer for the 2008 Judd Apatow film Pineapple Express.
In 2009 M.I.A. earned an Academy Award nomination for the song “O, Saya,” a collaboration with Indian composer A.R. Rahman for the Slumdog Millionaire (2008) soundtrack, and her single “Paper Planes” garnered a surprise Grammy Award nomination for record of the year. M.I.A., who was nine months pregnant and due to deliver on the day of the Grammy Awards ceremony in February 2009, performed with rappers T.I., Jay-Z, and Kanye West and provided one of the more memorable images of the ceremony (three days later she gave birth to a boy). Such mainstream exposure gave her a platform to voice her support for humanitarian aid for civilians in the Tamil region of Sri Lanka, although critics claimed that her lyrics and music videos betrayed a veiled sympathy for the militant Tamil separatist movement. She released her third album, Maya, to mixed reviews in 2010. Matangi (2013) was more positively received and yielded the hit single “Bad Girls.” M.I.A. stated that AIM (2016) would be her final album. However, in 2020 she released a new song, “OHMNI 202091,” on a subscription-based Web platform.