British singer/rapper Maya aka M.I.A., who is well known for a tough and outspoken attitude, reveals she has a softer and more sensitive side in an interview for the latest issue of GQ Magazine (July 2010).

The 34 year-old, who is currently engaged to Benjamin Brewer, was born in a very poor area in Sri Lanka and has a very difficult relationship with her father. She wants to offer her 1 year-old baby boy, Ikhyd, all the love and support she didn’t have as a child.

Here are some highlights from M.I.A.’s GQ interview:

On 1-year-old son Ikhyd: “Today he climbed out of the pen, had to take the door kind of off the hinges and move it aside to get around. And that’s amazing, that he’s figured it out already—and that he’s strong enough to do that.”

On moving to Brentwood, not New York City: “I wanted an environment where I could have a lot of friends and family come and stay. That was the important part for me. And in New York I wouldn’t have been able to afford someplace where I could have, like, all my friends come and crash out and where I could still have a baby.”

On the war-torn Sri Lankan ghetto of her childhood: “I lived on a street, a dead-end street. There were like seven or eight houses, and then you turn the corner and there was another seven, eight houses. But my whole family lived on the street. So it was amazing. I grew up with about a hundred of my cousins, playing hide-and-seek all over the village and the temples.”

M.I.A. GQ Pictures

[images: GQ via Knocked Up Celebs]