M.I.A. is quitting music.
The ‘Paper Planes’ hitmaker is planning to step away from the studio for the time being following the release of her new album ‘AIM’, which she dropped earlier this month, because she wants to make sure she doesn’t fall into the trap of following everyone else in order to fit into a popular brand.
Speaking to NME magazine, she explained: "I just need time away from it. I don’t want to change how I think creatively, to brand myself into an acceptable brand."
However, this isn’t the first time the 41-year-old rapper has announced she’s turning her back on music as it’s a phrase she’s thrown around constantly since her first album in 2005.
She said: "I’ve been saying this from the first album really. ‘Oh my God, ‘Arular’ [the first album], I quit!’ It’s just, as we go on and on in time, I feel like I’m in this really weird situation because I straddle three generations of music.
"I came through the britpop era. Then there was this turn-of-the-millennium era which I was part of, and then you’ve got this weird era where everything’s been corporatised to the max and you’re only allowed five, 10 pop star brands, who are as corporate as Sky. It just needs a little bit of rewriting."
M.I.A. – whose real name is Mathangi ‘Maya’ Arulpragasam – got her big break just over a decade ago but she hasn’t always been riddled with luck, as she and her family were forced to flee war-stricken Sri Lanka with her family when she was nine years old and had to take refuge in London.
She explained: "If you’re coming from the war zone, you definitely got an issue. You have to adapt to a new place, you have to start new schools – every kid is going to go through all the things I went through.
"They’re gonna be in a council flat, they have to fill out the forms, sit in the waiting rooms, get housed, wait for your voucher for your school uniform.
"And you had to come up with how to make luncheon vouchers look cool because you’re the only kid that’s got them! It’s my experience I had in England, this weird fabric of communities I experienced, that are all part of my sound in the end."
M.I.A. quits music
