M.I.A. performs on Sunday at Echostage.

Over six years have passed since M.I.A. came to the area for a non-festival performance. The show was high energy, intense and seemed to reflect the personality of the artist herself. She had ups and downs over the intervening time, but remains on a quest to remain true to herself while presenting something honest to audiences that come see her now.

“The pressure for art to be well constructed is so much. It’s the same production value, the same pyro, the same lights, and the same things that push your buttons,” said M.I.A., who will be performing Sunday at Echostage. “When I get on stage I don’t really know what happens. It’s not like, ‘Oh, look at people having a good time in a room.’ Every part of me is what it is.”

When M.I.A. first broke onto the scene with her 2005 debut, Arular, her sing-song delivery — half rap, half chant — combined with primal dance beats became a new sound on the club scene. Kala, the 2007 follow-up, saw her hone this same approach to a sharp point. The release was highly acclaimed and launched M.I.A. to international stardom with help from the ubiquitous single, “Paper Planes.”

Paul Simon, of all people, is a strong comparison for M.I.A.’s success with those early records. As the revered songwriter did with his groundbreaking work the mid- to late-’80s, M.I.A. expanded the aural palette by drawing from global influences, in some cases appropriating them outright, while focusing them into a coherent stream that could appeal to audiences around the world.

“It’s like a flash going off in a photo shoot and that one moment is extra lit,” M.I.A. said. “It’s also being very open minded and having the ability to sort of embrace a flash going off in the first place. When you’re making a song, you just have to be open to something happening. When it works you just have to have faith in it.”

A Sri Lankan native who ended up in the U.K. as a refugee after that nation’s civil war broke out, M.I.A.’s roots have always been central to her music, as have politics and social issues. Arular was named after her father, who was a Tamil Tiger in Sri Lanka. Kala was named for her mother, while M.I.A.’s two most recent album titles, MAYA (2010) and Matangi (2013), are both plays on her own name, Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam.

The most recent recordings failed to capture audiences and music writers, yours truly included, in the same way as the earlier work. There have been some public missteps, most notably her famous flipping of the bird during the 2012 Super Bowl halftime show. Still, the core elements of what brought M.I.A. to everyone’s attention with her first two albums remain. They still have plenty of dance tracks, and she remains provocative on and off stage. Just look at the video for “Bad Girls,” Matangi‘s lead single. Women in hijabs surround M.I.A. in some sequences, and together they display all the swagger and attitude that one normally expects in a male dominated hip-hop video.

“My music has been positive, even if sometimes my content and what I talk about isn’t necessarily the case,” M.I.A. said. “Especially for a female — not that I play that card — it’s really difficult to be punk and graceful at the same time.”

Part of the change in the perception to her music might be due to M.I.A.’s own evolving outlook, and Matangi the album could reflect this personal transition. She became a mother in 2009. She also spent time in India, investigating the root of her name and the spiritual side of her heritage, while trying to resolve those traditional ideas with her contemporary views. Matangi comes from the Hindu religion and is a name for the goddess of knowledge and creativity. After returning to London, M.I.A. exhibited some of the visual art she created after this period and found that there were people out there with whom it resonated.

“There are certain things we can’t change anymore. An iPhone is part of our life now. Working on a computer is part of our life,” she said. “I think, conceptually, it’s an important thing to talk about for kids. It’s about having some sort of harmony on the planet. Mythological stories about basic things like that just make you aware.”

I.M.P. presents M.I.A. with opener A$AP Ferg on Sunday, April 27 at Echostage. 7:30 p.m. doors. Tickets $45 plus fees.