M.I.A.

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.

M.I.A.’s first two albums, Arular (2005) and Kala (2007), received widespread critical acclaim for their fusion of hip hop, electronic, and world musics. The single “Paper Planes” from Kala reached number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 and sold over four million copies. Her third album Maya (2010) was preceded by the single “Born Free” and an accompanying controversial music video/short film. Maya was her best-charting effort, reaching the top 10 on several charts. Her fourth studio album, Matangi (2013), included the single “Bad Girls”, which won accolades at the MTV Video Music Awards. M.I.A. released her fifth studio album, AIM, in 2016. She scored her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single as a featured artist on Travis Scott’s “Franchise” (2020), and two years later, released her sixth studio album Mata, featuring lead single “The One”.