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M.I.A. Speaks Out About Love and Marriage

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For a performer whose most recent tour was called “People vs. Money,” whose lyrics address third-world struggles, and whose father was a revolutionary in Sri Lanka, marrying a potential heir to the Seagram’s beverage fortune would appear to present some interesting contradictions.

But for M.I.A., her engagement to Ben Brewer, guitarist of the Exit and son of Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr., it all boils down to one simple thing. “What can you do?” she tells Lorraine Ali in the December issue of SPIN, out next week. “I fell in love. It is what it is.”

“When he asked me out on a date, I thought, ‘I don’t know,'” she continues about Brewer, with whom she’s also expecting a child. “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 admits. “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.”

See Greg Kadel’s stunning photographs and read more about M.I.A.’s surprising rise up the charts this summer (with a year-old album, Kala), her pregnancy, and her growing number of interests — from fashion design to philanthropy — in our December issue.