Calling out the man

MIA is having none of it. "I am not a conspiracy theorist," she says.

"Yes, you are," I say.

The great pop contrarian also known as Mathangi Maya Arulpragasam huffs. "What I said about the internet is what's happening now. It's on the front of your own newspaper. It's not a conspiracy theory, is it - unless your paper is supporting a conspiracy theory? Conspiracy theory is too much of a small pond for me to swim in."

I feel suitably admonished.

It's been three years since MIA released her last studio album, Maya. Its first track was The Message, a 57-second rap suggesting that social media companies were working hand-in-hand with the world's governments to spy on us ("Connected to the Google, connected to the government," she chanted repeatedly). A lot of people accused her of being politically naive. Now, following the revelations about the spying capacity of America's NSA and Britain's GCHQ, it looks as if she was stating the obvious. Does she feel vindicated? "I do. I love it." She grins.

But after that third album, MIA decided she had had enough. She was bored with music, so made the gloriously titled mix-tape Vicki Leekx (a play on WikiLeaks) in two days, just to show she could, then quit. She moved to India with her baby son, Ikhyd, and wasn't heard of for ages. Now she's back, post-retirement, with a new album, so she can tell us about her retirement. Hard to get your head around? Welcome to Planet MIA.