Beauty of the Week: M.I.A.

As I am packing up and getting ready to leave South Korea for good and embarking on my trips to India and N. Ireland, in three days, I have decided to create a playlist for my separate trips.

This led me to look through my playlists of S.E. Asian artists and I was reunited with M.I.A. I will never forget her 9 months pregnant performance at the VMA's 4 years ago, when I thought, now THAT is a real artist. She was so passionate and she hopped around the stage as if she didn't have a 50 lbs belly hanging on to her.

I have always thought M.I.A. was talented and beautiful and at 38 she just keep getting better. Her style is kick ass and quirky and her stances are very much about empowering people. 

In fact, she refused to be put on People's Top 50 Beautiful People, stating, "Mother Teresa was never placed on the list."

M.I.A. was born Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam in Hounslow, London, U.K.  on July 18, 1975. Her family moved to Jaffna, Sri Lanka right before the civil war broke out between the Tamils and Sinhalese. Her father became an activist plunging her and her family into a life of hiding, until at the age of 10, her mother moved her and her brother back to London.

M.I.A. has defied convention, releasing her first album at the tender age of 30, which was named after her father, Arular. Her second album, Kala, was named after her mother, Kala.

Her 4th album originally had a release date for 2012 and will be called Mathangi, which would be named after her, but due to a heated custody battle over her son with Billionaire and environmentalist, Ben Bronfman, the album was postponed until November 2013.

This album includes my shiz, "Bad Girlz" for which she did a video about car drifting which has become popular in Saudi Arabia. There was speculation that the video was bringing to the forefront the law that disallows women to drive. The video actually is a celebration of cultures, of men AND women. Above all, the video is awesome and so is she. 

So without much ado, here is a peek into my India Playlist.