The Big, Giant, Revealing M.I.A. Interview

Ten years ago, M.I.A. released her groundbreaking debut album, Arular.

To commemorate the anniversary, I sought out the elusive, controversial singer/rapper/awesome-person, and we took a candid, honest, revealing trip down memory lane for Rolling Stone.

Read: “Arular’ 10 Years Later: M.I.A. Reflects on Globe-Shaking Debut”

Twenty-four hours since the interview went live on Rolling Stone’s website, some parts of the interview — particularly gossipy bits about her former boyfriend/collaborator Diplo and Oprah — have been picked up by many major media outlets.

These outlets include: New York Mag, Billboard, Jezebel, Salon, Cosmopolitan, E!, Us Weekly, VH1, NY Daily News, NME, Nylon, Daily Mail, Idolator, Defamer, Uproxx, Consequence of Sound, Just Jared and Perez Hilton, among others.

I’m happy the interview has been embraced, but the reason I’m writing this here is because I really want to implore readers to check out the ENTIRE interview.

Because in the grand scheme of things, any time someone says something and the context from which it was said gets removed, it can be shaped and packaged into something else entirely, and well, that’s just not good.

The point of the interview was to discuss a piece of art and a time of M.I.A.’s life that was very important to her. And although she’s always been very outspoken, to her credit, here she opened up in a way that she’s never done before. I have to thank her for that.

So go on, indulge in the full M.I.A. interview. It’s far more interesting than just a few soundbites, and I think you’ll come away from it feeling particularly refreshed.