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John Legend: "M.I.A. is killing it right now. Great beats. Distinctive voice."
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"It's difficult because here there's no one doing it. There are people like Damon Albarn, Ian Brown and 3D from Massive Attack and people like that, but among new artists there's only me and MIA who seriously and permanently question British government foreign policy. That is really dark compared to the counter-culture in the 1960s and the punk movement in the 1970s and Red Wedge in the 1980s. They were a kind of social voice but now there's none. This is at a time with the current economic situation, being at war in two countries, with the possibility of a war in a third country - or fourth if you include Pakistan - there's the situation with climate change and there's the rise of the BNP. I would argue we need a politicised voice more than ever, but within mainstream music there's no one, and you have to ask yourself why. I think one of the reasons is that it has been recently a bit of a commercial suicide to entertain politics in your music. But my heroes were political - Bob Marley, John Lennon, Joe Strummer. It's become un-cool to care about the world you live in. It's become cool to take crack. I don't think that's a rebellious act. I think it's far more rebellious to question the country we live in and the government. I never fell out of love with the idea of it being cool to care about the world you live in."
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"...in the last twenty years - hip-hop, rap, grime, gabba, jungle, bashment, dub-step - British MCs are continually innovative. In the meantime we've had the new rock revolution, brit-pop and new rave, all of which are backwards looking genres of music made by middle-class white people - see what I'm saying? In a narrative of British music, Black culture and Asian culture has been completely written out of the history of British music by white journalists who are essentially very conservative in their outlook. So therefore we're trying to address that. Secondly to that, there's only me and MIA amongst new artists that since 9/11 have continually questioned British foreign policy. And this record seriously takes this to task..."

 

M.I.A.

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