more records than the kgb

Last Tuesday, M.I.A.'s sophomore release, Kala, was released in the U.S. on Interscope records. Because it was released the day before in Britain on XL, I was able to get my ears around it early through emusic, thereby snagging the extra track, a duet with Timbaland, which is available only on the British version.

I'd been reading a lot of hype about this one, and I'd heard a handful of tracks that were released over this past year, but I'm here to tell you to believe the hype: Kala could very well be the album of the year.

If you're not familiar with M.I.A., she is Maya Arulpragasam, originally from Sri Lanka, and, on the strength of her first single, "Galang," she was propelled into indie/club/dancehall/electronica stardom. Her first full-length Arular was my favorite album of 2005, and Kala is turning about to be my favorite of 2007. I can't stop playing it. It's especially great driving music, cranked up high and vibrating the windshield.

Arular was edgy, catchy, and smart club music with a conscience; it took jabs at U.S. imperialism, child prostitution, and world poverty. Kala is every bit as edgy. Taking up a similar set of social concerns as did Arular, it investigates the effects of consumerism, immigration, and a global economy intent on widening the gap between those who run corporations and those who work for them. M.I.A. is socially conscious, but not thoroughly clear as to the implications of her own place in a world that looks East, West, North, and South to devour and recreate new forms of culture. She's at once ironic and sincere in confessing her attachment to the products and pleasures she enjoys as a result of Western imperialism (cell phones, French fries, watching Lost on cable). And even when she asserts herself as a leader of the "third world democracy," she seems insecure as to her supremacy while questioning any desire for supremacy over others.

The first track, "Bamboo Banga" begins with M.I.A. quoting the Modern Lovers' "Road Runner." It's an apt metaphor, as many of Kala's songs have her spitting lyrics fast and furious, and throughout she demonstrates her quick wit and her ahead-of-the-pack innovations. The track is a head banger and hip shaker, filled with M.I.A.'s trademark vocal phrasings with high-pitched up-turns.

In "Boyz" she asks "How many boyz there are?" but rather than offer up a range of masculinity, she suggests that boys are fundamentally "rowdy" and that each is capable of starting a war. The pounding techno beat both underscores and obscures M.I.A.'s discussion of men's capacity for violence. On "Jimmy," M.I.A. speaks from the point of view of a woman who may not fully understand that penchant for violence, but begs to be implicated in it. The song is basically a recasting of "Jimmy Jimmy Aaja Aaja," a swirling disco Bollywood tune, but M.I.A.'s lyrics are decidedly contemporary:

When you go Rwanda Congo
Take me on ya genocide tour
Take me on a truck to Darfur
Take me where you would go.

The woman who pines for Jimmy only glances at these African catastrophes, and instead worries about the static on Jimmy's satellite phone and when she can be alone in his arms again. Still, this backdrop of political massacre strikes me as integral to a song that muses about the possibility love in an age of genocide.

On Kala, M.I.A. continues the musical plundering of '80s music that fueled the Diplo/M.I.A. collaboration, Piracy Funds Terrorism, Vol. 1. There, the Bangles, the Eurythmics and Prince were the victims (or beneficiaries) of such piracy, and they were so seemlessly integrated into M.I.A.'s tracks that they were less samples or mash-ups than outright claims of ownership. In "20 Dollar," M.I.A. turns to New order and the Pixies. The song is built on a fuzzed-out loop lifted from "Blue Monday," and M.I.A. harmonizes via vocoder. The lyrics continue to explore the issues she raised in Arular's "10 Dollar": the intertwined nature of money, sex, and power, especially for non-Western people who turn their eyes and ears to the West and are willing to trade in Qrans for Cadillacs to escape life in the shanty town. But whereas "10 Dollar" told the story of a young Lolita turning tricks to secure a travel visa, "20 Dollar" comes off as more autobiographical:

I was born out of dirt like I'm porn in a skirt
I was a little girl who made good with all what I blurt.

In "10 Dollar," M.I.A. sang about the China girl prostitute in third person; here she takes up a more immediate first person, thoroughly appropriating Black Francis's lyrics, chanting "Where is My Mind?" as a means of expressing confusion as to who she is and where she belongs.

My favorite track from the album is "Paper Planes," which is at once lovely and creepy. The song, which takes up issues related to immigration, fittingly borrows the bass line from The Clash's own pointed meditation on immigration blues, "Straight to Hell." Part of what makes M.I.A. so effective here is her deadpan delivery; she never emotes; she simply allows the serious implications of her lyrics to work their way into the listener's consciousness. The speaker in this song is making and selling paper planes at the border, and is, at first, solicitous:

I fly like paper, get high like planes
If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name.
If you come around here, I make 'em all day
I'll get one done in a second, if you wait.

But by the chorus, you realize that this paper plane peddler's desires are more deadly:

All I want to do is BANG BANG BANG BANG
and ka-CHING, and take your money.

Here the track incorporates the sounds of a firing gun, the ejection of a freshly fired casing, and a cash register's bell. The effect is eerie. The sentiment is at once chilling and sensible. Haven't we all had murderous fantasies about those who are appear to be better off, seemingly at our expense? Of course, you=the listener here, and the sense of threat is palpable. I'm even more unnerved when M.I.A. sings, "Some some some I some I murder / Some I some I let go" like a child intoning a nursery rhyme. There's a context for this brand of gangsta, and it's not in any way gratuitous. This is purposeful and pointed. At folks like me. Still, this is the song I repeat most often.

All the tracks on Kala are stunning in their own right, and I highly recommend it. They are suffused in insistent, infectious beats that take hold of you and refuse to let you go. If you buy only one new album this year, this should probably be it.

Visit M.I.A.'s website to watch videos for "Jimmy," "Boyz," and "Birdflu." Read J. Edward Keyes's spot-on review of Kala here. And check out Yancey Strickler pre-release discussion of it here.