For the Baby Baby Baby interview we sat down back in March at El Califa in Condesa, along with her crew, the local organizers and promoters behind MX Beat, and friends. As our conversation progressed, M.I.A. ate a juicy chunk of beef over a tortilla with her hands ("This is the first time I've been anywhere where I've constantly been eating."). The nail polish was neon orange.
Such details are relevant because besides being a sensational performer and beat-maker, Maya Arulpragasam is a goddess of street fashion and a self-described "muse" to designers. And writers. Besides being gorgeous the London native possesses an intense personal energy that translated directly into our conversation, where she made plenty of rather bold statements. Here's an excerpt, from a series of questions about what it means to be an immigrant in the United States and the creative energy that the Third World brings to it:
America has no more creative energy than England. England has way more. All this stuff that’s happening in Middle America, if you think about it, creatively, their political stance. People fly-posting, and ‘fuck this shit.' All that shit. If you look at the designers that make political T-shirts, ‘Fuck Nike, Here’s Mike.’ That actual attitude started in England. It didn’t even start in America while they were fucking going around bombing people all over the planet. It kind of came from Banksy. We were doing shit like that 10 years ago reacting to what was going on in America, because there was no reaction that was coming out of America. […] It couldn’t have come from America. You can’t make that happen in America because they’re not tolerant. That was the whole point.
She also said, about Kala, "I wrote the album for Mexicans, shit," and that if her visa is not renewed and she must leave her place in Brooklyn she will, jokingly, "Move to Mexico and start launching missles from here." And when I asked her if fashion influences her music or if music influences her fashion, M.I.A. unequivocably said, "Fashion comes first."
* Note: Some pages have reported that M.I.A. told Baby Baby Baby she is moving to Canada or marrying Kanye West. This is incorrect and does not appear anywhere in my transcripts. There must be some confusion with whatever source this is from. Baby Baby Baby is a sister publication of Celeste magazine. I'm told it is sold at American Apparel stores worldwide.
** Photo above by Mexico City photographer Napoleon Habeica.
