M.I.A.: I’d love to raid his wardrobe. - M.I.A.

I think I'm the edge finder

I didn't want to make huge political statements; in fact, I hate preachy shit and people saying, 'This is good; this is bad.' I talk about how I see things as an everyday person in England. I was saying things that were a bit controversial, and I wanted to say that there are some opinions that aren't black and white. Things are confusing and complex. If you really want to be a good person, you understand things from all points of view and you are empathetic towards every opinion and every voice. I was like, 'I'm going to make an album about how it's difficult to make sense of living today, and that is added to by the television and the media, the person at my bank and the person at my mobile phone company.' I want to make sense of all those people and what is going on, and that is what I tried to do lyrically, and not provide a manifesto.

I think I just kind of thought about all the artists that I really respected throughout the - just any genre of music really and I think everybody that I respected and liked. They were just them. You know, they're people who always stuck to who they were, and were true and honest about who they were. So I think that kind of gave me a real like confidence to just stick at it. Just thinking about people like Bjork - you know, I don't know, Bob Dylan, you know artists that truly were strong in themselves.