MIA on vaccines, vindication and her visions of Jesus: People fear me for some reason – The Guardian

For 20 years, MIA has existed at the intersection of vilification and vindication. The London-born, Sri Lanka-raised rapper and singer has spent her entire career fighting perceived injustices in the world, from the underreporting and whitewashing of the Tamil genocide to the incarceration of her friend, the WikiLeaks whistleblower Julian Assange. She also has terminal foot-in-mouth disease, and is prone to flippant, occasionally outright offensive trolling in the press and on Twitter.

At the heart of it all has been the music itself an electrifying body of work that is innovative, influential and, to this day, totally singular. Travis Scott, one of the most successful living rappers, has listed her as one of his favourite artists; in 2020, she was awarded an MBE for services to music.

Her sixth album, Mata, which is out today, is her most reflective record yet, looking over the ups and downs of her career with an attitude that suggests no love is lost for those who criticised her views. I tried to make you see I was telling the truth, she sings on her new single, Beep, and, given her warnings about the overreach of tech companies and her pioneering of abrasive noise-pop years ahead of Yeezus and the likes of 100 Gecs youre inclined to believe her. Still, all that reflection doesnt mean she has lost her confrontational spirit, nor deterred her from tweeting a statement on Wednesday night, about the rightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, that left many people aghast: If Alex jones pays for lying shouldnt every celebrity pushing vaccines pay too?

Anyone who has been following MIA, born Mathangi Arulpragasam, at any point in her career knows that this kind of comment is par for the course. Speaking over Zoom from Los Angeles two days before Mata is released and about an hour after the Jones tweet the 47-year-old rapper is often erudite and, just as frequently, profoundly troubling and confusing, prone to going on tangents about the blob what she calls the unruly, manipulative version of the internet we use today and sharing ultra-detailed history lessons on Assanges extradition and the history of the Sri Lankan civil war.

The album itself doesnt take up much of our conversation her answer to a question about one song ends up down a rabbit hole that leads to were going to go to Mars and were going to evolve the human species. Instead MIA gives full rein to her opinions on other topics, from her newfound Christianity and identity politics to, yes, Covid vaccines. Unlike many stars of her ilk, she doesnt shy from answering any question, and the team who linger throughout the Zoom call her publicist and a rep from Salxco, her new management firm, which also represents the Weeknd and Doja Cat never attempts to intervene, even when the conversation turns to thornier topics.

Mata may be MIAs most contemplative record, recalling lyrical themes from every part of her career but its very clearly not an attempt to re-enter the mainstream pop world she was orbiting in the 2010s. Its a rhythmic, sample-driven album that often eschews simple pop melody for anarchic schoolyard chants and beats that recall reggaeton and funk carioca, as well as lyrics that seem to reference the prescience of her past work. But she says that she hasnt wasted time stewing over the fact that history has proved her right on some of the subjects she talked about years ago, such as the NSA spying on US citizens, or the plight of the Tamil people. No matter who you are, the universe is moving so fast these days that its almost like your history is irrelevant, she says. I feel vindicated when I look at the craziness of the modern-day world, and Im like: Oh, 10 years ago, if they didnt put that guy in jail [Assange], and kill that dude [it is unclear who she means], we wouldnt really have this now.

During the process of making Mata, MIAs sense of self was in a state of intense upheaval. In 2015, after shooting a video in India for the single Borders, she fell ill and experienced a vision of Jesus Christ that caused her to become very confused creatively. She thinks the vision was a result of someone doing some sort of mantra on her. I didnt think it was effective and it turned out that it was effective. As she slowly began to surrender to the idea that she might die, I said: OK, thats fine, Im happy that I lived and Ive experienced and did my best. As Id given in to dying, then I had the vision.

After that, MIA felt a tension between the Hinduism she had embraced in recent years and her new Christianity. Its not like I was into the deity in Hinduism that was about wealth I was specifically into Matangi, a deity about creativity and arts, she says. Faced with having to cut that off and embrace the concept of Jesus Christ, I was having an existential crisis.

Mata, then, is partially about surrendering into the idea that the conflict is within myself, she says. Some songs, such as The One, seem to embrace the idea of existing on a righteous path; others, such as FIASOM (which stands for Freedom Is a State of Mind, and is pronounced fearsome) and Zoo Girl, channel what she calls the vibrancy of her Tamil heritage. Two years after her vision, she points out, came the pandemic. That narrative is very Christian its not a Hindu thing, its a Christian thing, and I think thats why it happened, she says. It prepares you for something thats about to come. You have to use a different rulebook to understand what is happening.

It would have been easy for MIA to mount a comeback based on the idea that she was mistreated by the media and the general public in the early days of her career; in recent years, it has been acknowledged that the early treatment of confrontational female stars such as Sinad OConnor and the Chicks was awash with misogyny. Everyone is more scared of me than any of those artists, she says. Were living through a time where people are seeing the hyper-inflated nature of capitalism and the destruction it causes, and even though I dont have that kind of monetary power, I do feel like people fear me for some reason.

She has an idea about why the media has been so reluctant to rehabilitate her. Outrage over comments such as her Alex Jones tweet, she says emphatically, ignores the fact that lying and truth have been constant themes in her career. Although she has been vocal about specific issues, such as human rights in Bangladesh and the Tamil war, her ultimate goal, she says, has been to expose the fact that people in power are constantly operating through the use of deception. Im not here to discuss things with ignorant people who dont know what Ive done, she says. I took a hit for [talking about the Tamil genocide], because it wasnt cool enough for 15 years before identity politics and this word oppression became a buzzword. It wasnt cool. So I was deleted all through that 15 years.

Of Jones, she says, today, youve got some white guy who apparently lied and made some families feel terrible, who now has to pay $1bn because he denied someones real experience, real loss and real emotional trauma. Although she believes its terrible that the Sandy Hook families were subjected to Joness slander about the murder of their children, she invokes the 146,000 unaccounted-for Tamil civilians who dont get the same kind of empathy. If were going to have a scapegoat in society where somebodys going to pay for [lying about atrocities], then I would like to bring the same sort of court case against every western publication that said only 40,000 Tamils were killed in the last days of the war.

MIA is acutely aware of the blowback she will get for her tweets about Jones, but its clear that her resentment runs deeper than any outrage cycle or Twitter spat the result, she says, of 15 years of media coverage saying that Tamils dont count, our feelings dont count, we dont care about our dead ones or the ones that are missing. Im gonna have to deal with, like, a bunch of ignorant sheeples going she puts on an American accent Oh my God, girl, delete your Twitter. What are you talking about? You cant say that to me after I have paid real prices throughout my career.

So why is she a vaccine sceptic? Over the course of our conversation, she repeatedly links the subject to big pharma and the US medical system, the cost of living crisis and the general publics access to information, areas of vital basic human need that are exploited for monetary gain.

The language they use to attack anybody is to say: Oh, shes an anti-vaxxer or blah blah blah. And its like, no, not really, she says. I know three people who have died from taking the vaccine and I know three people who have died from Covid. This is in my life, in my experience. If anyone is going to deny that experience and gaslight me, saying: No, thats not your experience, then what is the point of anything?

(In March 2022, a major study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found no link between the number of deaths following vaccination and receiving two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine; in figures published in February 2022, 15 people in the UK died following receiving the vaccine. The WHO reports the Covid worldwide death toll to be in excess of 6.5m.)

MIA continues: What is the existence that you are trying to protect by giving me a vaccine if I cant even have an experience and process that information in my own brain and come to some sort of conclusion? And live within a society where I have to make choices every day?

This idea of a freedom without any genuine choice comes up several times in our conversation. Theres this weird idea that were all free, and that we fight for everything, and we can say what we want, but on the other hand, I feel like theres even more of a crackdown on that.

Along the same lines, she sees identity politics as ignoring fundamentals of human existence, which still arent being met. I feel like there has to be priorities the basic human need is food, water, shelter and clothing, she says. Identity politics and all this other stuff comes after you have the comfort of those things. Once you have healthy food and your brains working properly and your bodys working properly, then you can sit there and think about whether you want to have a drink and go out or be a certain thing or think a certain way.

She cites the example of the movement to defund the police in the US, suggesting that this will cause poverty and hardship. Even [with] the police force, who were supposed to not like, you had people losing their livelihoods and losing their jobs and cant pay rent, families losing their houses because theyre threatened with this choice of following orders or not following orders, she says. That is actually really happening on our doorstep, like this is not happening in Sri Lanka, this is happening in the west, this is happening in your neighbourhood.

This is the problem, she says, with cancel culture. I think everyone should be having open conversations we dont all have to, like, build effigies of people and burn them in the street for saying something, going after them like Guy Fawkes, because of fear of being seen as the other.

Our time is up. As has been the case throughout her career, this conversation with MIA sparks more questions than answers. If theres a sympathetic angle on some of her more alarming views, its that after experiencing the displacement of her family in Sri Lanka and the discombobulating effects of fame, it is understandable that she would search widely to make sense of her experiences not least in her embrace of Christianity. There may never be enough time for her to explain how she feels about the state of the world, but one truism holds, she says: Id like to be there when the shit goes down revolution.

Mata is out now on Island

This article was amended on 14 October 2022. MIA was born in London and spent her childhood in Sri Lanka, not the other way around as a previous version said.

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MIA on vaccines, vindication and her visions of Jesus: People fear me for some reason - The Guardian