Maya Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., was featured in 4REAL Liberia. She spent her childhood in the shadows of Sri Lanka's civil war before becoming a refugee and settling with her mother in L...

Maya Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., was featured in 4REAL Liberia. She spent her childhood in the shadows of Sri Lanka's civil war before becoming a refugee and settling with her mother in London's crime-rattled council estates. Hearing Public Enemy for the first time. Graduating in fine art and film from London's prestigious Central Saint Martins College and emerging as a one-to-watch visual artist. A friendship with electroclash icon Peaches, who introduced her to the lo-fi mysteries of the Roland MC-505.

"I had the 505, a shitty 4-track recorder and tiny mic," M.I.A. told a journalist in 2004. "I could do it in my bed...At the end of my first week I made a beat. At the end of the second week, I was doing vocals. By the end of the second month I could write a whole song, and by month three I was actually getting it right."

Which brings us again to the point at hand - the music. M.I.A.'s early underground singles "Galang" and "Sunshowers" shocked listeners with sharp lyrics about urban unease thrown on top of raw beats you could dance to, and in late 2004 as she finished her debut album for XL Recordings she released a hip-hop style promotional mixtape showcasing her distinctive vocal style and quirky rapping over dancehall rhythms and instrumental tracks by platinum artists like Missy Elliot and Jay-Z.

As a collaboration with another buzz artist (Philly's DJ/producer Diplo) the Piracy Funds Terrorism vol 1 mixtape had roughly the same effect as gasoline on an open fire; the project made many critics' "best of" list for 2004 while simultaneously cementing her proper album Arular as the most highly anticipated release of 2005. She wasn't done; M.I.A.'s live show backed up the buzz with a packed schedule that saw her rocking every mic she touched, from the tiny stage of a dank Ukrainian social club in Philly to an electrifying performance in front of a multitude of fans at this spring's Coachella festival. When Arular dropped in April the M.I.A. explosion took on atomic proportions.

But M.I.A. wants you to know that her story is only beginning to be told. It would be an error to mistake the positive press and rave reviews-and yes, the hype around her-for who she is as a person and as an artist, she explains, mainly because she's always evolving and creating.

"Because I was doing something that some people thought was fresh and new and exciting there was this idea that I was gonna bring forth a big Ten Commandments type of statement or something," she says. "But people don't realize that I had to come from a village in Sri Lanka to get here. So the journey is about the journey itself-not just about doing music."

Thankfully the next stage of the journey entails just that: more music. M.I.A.''s restless search for what seems like the last Roland MC-505 on the island of Manhattan is the key to her plans for another mixtape and the groundwork for a second album.

"I know what I like. It's something loud with a bass line and it's around people with a spirit. That's what it's all about to me. It ain't about music on a laptop, it's about what's happening in the world.

"My process is 50-50. I absorb a lot of stuff from the environment around me, but I also need space to create as an artist," she continues. "In the past few months I've taken in everything around me, and now what I need to do is rent a cave and hide away to get some work done. Can you rent a cave in New York?"

Finding a cave in the city isn't so difficult. The question is, can you wire it for a 505?