She had survived a civil war, refugee camps, and decades of music industry skepticism. None of that prepared M.I.A. for what three words on social media would cost her.
“Jesus is real.” That post triggered what the British-Sri Lankan rapper calls the biggest backlash of her career. Not a controversial video. Not a political statement. Three words about her faith.
The fact that the biggest back lash in my career and life I’m facing after saying “Jesus is real” is such a revelation to me. People who control these apps rather me be a bad girl , then a good one.
— M.I.A. (@MIAuniverse) December 28, 2022
A Vision She Didn’t Ask For
In 2017, while in the Caribbean, Mathangi Arulpragasam had an experience she still can’t fully account for.
“I had a vision and I saw the vision of Jesus Christ,” she told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “It’s a very crazy thing because it turned my world upside down. Everything I thought and believed was no longer the case.”
She wasn’t using drugs or alcohol. And she wasn’t looking for Jesus. She had found genuine meaning in Hinduism and wasn’t searching for anything else.
“I was very comfortable in Hinduism at the time it happened. I loved it,” she said.
Her best explanation for why it happened anyway? “Maybe there was just enough Christians praying for me.”
“Even If It Costs Me My Career”
When Lowe asked whether she now considers herself a born-again Christian, she didn’t hedge.
“I am. I’m not going to lie. Even if it costs me my career, I won’t lie.”
She knew exactly what she was walking into. Her fanbase skews progressive, secular, and skeptical of organized religion. She said as much before the backlash arrived: “All of my fans might turn against me because they are all progressives who hate people that believe in Jesus Christ in this country.”
She was right.
What She Actually Believes
M.I.A. has been careful not to let her faith get sorted into any political or denominational box. In an interview with Relevant Magazine, she pushed back on the American Christian identity as a package deal: “If you say you’re a Christian, I feel like you have to be this person who’s against this thing, who’s against this president, who’s against that thing.”
She acknowledged the extremes that exist in religion, noted they exist in music too, and said she intends to navigate her faith without falling into them.
What she won’t negotiate on is the experience itself. “In my time of need, the God that turned up to save me was not Shiva. It was Jesus.”
