Birth Name: Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam
DOB: July 17, 1977
Status: Engaged
Age: 31
Nationality:Sri Lankan
Born: Hounslow, London, England
Education: London's Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, where she studied fine art, film and video
Occupation: Rapper, singer, songwriter, producer, painter
Stage name: M.I.A.
Meaning behind the name? (M.I.A.): Her alias, "M.I.A." stands for both "Missing in Acton" and "Missing in Action".
Record Label: XL/Interscope
Best Known as: singer of the dance hit "Galang"

Misc Facts:

M.I.A.'s "Boyz" video was shot in Jamaica

M.I.A. didn't want to be a performer at all. Before handing "Galang," her eventual seminal hit, to neighbourhood label XL, she demoed the track with three different female singers. "I fought being the performer until I couldn't fight it anymore."

Her original idea for Arular's follow-up was based around a much more focused and heavy beat. A week after she gave it to the label, Gwen Stefani's "Wind It Up" single was released and it sounded almost exactly the same. Extremely frustrated, M.I.A. changed directions entirely, using instead the touchstones of Indian music as the starting point for "Bird Flu."

She's essentially living a nomadic existence, touring when her albums come out and then travelling the world to record in the downtime. She has no apartment in her former home of London, England where she couch surfs when she returns.