M.I.A. COPING WITH MICHAEL JACKSON'S DEATH

Singer M.I.A. was slammed by the sudden death of her idol Michael Jackson, because his music was all she had access to growing up in the country of Sri Lanka. M.I.A. revealed she was raised on Jackson's hits until her family moved to the United Kingdom in her early teens. M.I.A. tells Spinner.com, "He’s the only music that we had in Sri Lanka in terms of Western music. For my generation, anyway. The only tapes that made it to Sri Lanka were Michael Jackson. That was it. That was all we had. The whole village listened to Michael Jackson, they made bootleg tapes, tape to tape, for each other, and that’s kinda all we had."
Photo By: Sara De Boer/Retna