M.I.A. on controversial 'Borders' video: 'This is who I am'

NEW YORK, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- Tamil-British rapper M.I.A. says she's not the type of celebrity to lightly touch on a sensitive subject close to her -- she works to make it widely known.

Speaking with Time about her most recent music video for the track "Borders," the 40-year-old artist explained what she was thinking as she worked on the video, and why she used an all-male cast as refugees.

"When the media cover [the refugee crisis], it's like there's this swarm of men in boats coming to wipe the west out," she, a former childhood refugee herself, said. "That's the way it's talked about...Except that it's not that. The real images of what it looks like are actually women and children. I didn't want to go to the easiest source of empathy."

M.I.A. went on to contrast herself from other artists in the United States, who maintain their relevance by "talking about immigrants on one song just out of the blue because they see it as a topic that is happening this year." She explained she doesn't have a problem with that, but "I'm not that artist."

"But I'm the other type of artist -- actually, this is who I am, this is where I come from, there are my people. It's difficult as an artist to shy away from it when you do know a lot about it or when you empathize a lot with the situation," she said. "It's very difficult not to talk about it."

The musician's "Borders" music video was released on Apple Music in late November and features an artistic glimpse into the lives of refugees. M.I.A. dedicated the short film to her uncle Bala, "my icon and role model," and one among the first Tamil migrants to move to the United Kingdom in the 1960s.

Although born in the United Kingdom, M.I.A. grew up in Sri Lanka, where her father was a political activist during the country's civil war. She moved with her mother and brother to the United Kingdom as refugees in 1986.