M.I.A. is Awarded and M.B.E.

By: Kaitlin Milligan Jun. 10, 2019

M.I.A. has been awarded an MBE (Member of The British Empire). The recognition was announced as part of Queen Elizabeth's annual "Birthday Honours List." She was given the award for her "services to music."

See M.I.A.'s official Instagram statement below!

M.I.A's mother Kala who her second LP is named after, stitched these medals over the past 30 years.

Activist, mother, and style icon Maya Arulpragasam has been nominated for an Academy Award® (for Slumdog Millionaire), a GRAMMY Award and The Mercury Prize. Raised in Sri Lanka, an 11-year-old Arulpragasam immigrated to the U.K. with her mother and siblings to escape the violence of Civil War. She has released five studio album and numerous singles. Last year saw the release of the critically acclaimed documentary MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A., an intimate and eye-opening profile of her remarkable trajectory from young Tamil refugee to global pop star.

View this post on Instagram

I'm honoured to have this honour, as it means alot to my Mother. I want to honour what my mum spent many hours of her life doing! She is one of the 2 women in England who hand stitched these medals for the last 30 years. After receiving asylum my mum and cousin took this job in 1986, because it was the only non English speaking manual labour she could find. She spent her life in England hand sewing 1000s of medals for the Queen. No matter how I feel or what I think , my Mother was extremely proud of the job she had. It's a very unique situation for me where I get to honour her most classiest minimum wage job ever. #TAMIL #UKTAMIL #REFUGEE survival story. #LIFECYCLES. #whomademymedal

A post shared by MIA (@miamatangi) on Jun 8, 2019 at 5:35am PDT

Photo Credit: Jan Lehner