M.I.A.

M.I.A. is  Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam, Sri Lankan Tamil rapper, producer and visual artist. Her father was a Tamil activist who became the founding member of a militant group; her mother fled to India and then to London with Mathangi and her siblings as refugees as civil war broke out in Sri Lanka during the 80s. M.I.A.'s music defies catagorization, containing elements of grime, hip-hop, ragga, dancehall, electro, and baile funk, an intense, dirty, chaotic collage of sound that absolutely crackles with tension from second to second; smart, cynical, violent, sexually charged; music with no holds barred.