M.I.A.: With a Rebel Yell

Photographs by Greg Kadel

Now luxury-SUV rollers like T.I., Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West have sampled her ("Paper Planes" figures prominently on their hit collaboration "Swagga Like Us") and fashion hounds wear her 1,000-watt, Malcolm McLaren–meets-Basquiat designs. In the last six months, the Brooklyn, New York–based fine-arts grad has launched her own clothing line, Okley Run, at New York's Fashion Week (a bright, busy collection that includes the $180 watermelon hoodie and $85 Afrika leggings), birthed the new label N.E.E.T. (Not in Education, Employment, or Training, or teen spelled backwards), signed and is producing Baltimore underground star Rye Rye, and funded a new primary school in war-torn Liberia. In fact, M.I.A. became so determined to pursue all her different interests that in June she announced onstage at Bonnaroo that she was playing her last gig. She admits now that the proclamation was a bit premature. "I wanted to be more creative, make new kinds of art, go back to college, maybe make a film," she says, with characteristic casualness. "Nice ideas, but I like making music, too, so they didn't really last."

How does an artist who aligns herself with refugees, revolution, and ragga negotiate fame, the high-flying world of fashion, and marriage into one of America's wealthiest families? "The word fiancé makes me feel so, you know, French," M.I.A. says with a laugh when discussing Brewer, a potential heir to the Seagram's beverage fortune. "When he asked me out on a date, I thought, 'I don't know,' " she says. "It's like crossing over to the other side. I've always had that fuck-the-system mentality, and his dad is so 'the System.' But then, they're the most liberal family -- they bootlegged alcohol, for God's sake. They're rich because they threw big, illegal parties, so I don't mind.

"Still, I know I'll catch flak," she says, a slight exasperation in her voice, as if she's already analyzed the subject a billion times over. "But I think I would've been screwed either way. I kept dating guys who were broke, who came from the streets, or from backgrounds like mine, but they didn't necessarily treat me any better. My fiancé is really a great guy."

For a girl who recently finished a tour dubbed "People vs. Money," familial ties with the Bronfmans may appear hypocritical, but as M.I.A. says, "What can you do? I fell in love. It is what it is." In retrospect, the lyrics to Kala's "Bird Flu" seem prescient: "Streets are making 'em hard / So they selfish little roamers / Jumpin' girl to girl / Make us meat like burgers / When I get fat / I'll pop me out some leaders." Is it another case of a bird -- or at least a bird-themed song -- predicting M.I.A.'s fate? She laughs at the suggestion that she knew any of this was coming, though she will say that her late maternal grandmother was an avid drinker of Martell cognac (a Seagram's product) and believes that, through heavenly intervention, Gran brought her and Brewer together. "She was, after all, Seagram's number-one customer," says M.I.A. proudly.