Why is MIA famous?
Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam was born on July 18, 1975, in Hounslow, London, to Arul Pragasam, a Sri Lankan Tamil engineer, writer, and activist, and his seamstress wife, Kala. family relocated to Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka when MIA was six months old, where her brother Sugu was born. Her father took the name Arular and…
Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam was born on July 18, 1975, in Hounslow, London, to Arul Pragasam, a Sri Lankan Tamil engineer, writer, and activist, and his seamstress wife, Kala.
family relocated to Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka when MIA was six months old, where her brother Sugu was born.
Her father took the name Arular and became a political activist and founding member of the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), a political Tamil group affiliated with the LTTE, in Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan Civil War caused displacement for the first 11 years of Arulpragasam’s life. Arulpragasam’s family went into hiding from the Sri Lankan Army during this time, and MIA had little contact with her father.
MIA has described her family as being in “big-time” poverty when MIA was a child, but MIA also recalls some of her happiest childhood memories from Jaffna.
Maya attended Catholic convent schools such as the Holy Family Convent in Jaffna, where MIA honed her art skills, particularly painting, in order to advance in her class.
Why is MIA famous?
M.I.A., real name Maya Arulpragasam, is a British-born Sri Lankan rapper who rose to prominence with politically charged dance music.
