Yet Maya, ever the subversive one, works in the lines “ take me on a genocide tour/ take me on a trip to Darfur,” upping the ante on her PLO reference in 2005’s “Sunshowers.” Then came the far less abrasive “Jimmy,” reworking ’80s Bollywood disco theme “Jimmy Jimmy Aaja” into a giddy electro bounce, suggesting that Kala would also be one of the most fun releases of 2007. In just two songs, Kala was shaping up to be one of the most unusual pop releases of 2007, not to mention one of the best. Likewise, first single “Boyz” arrived a few months later with a soul calypso rhythm and a bigger, catchier bed of layered sounds and hooks. gave listeners a taste with the frantic “Bird Flu,” an effects laden polyrhythmic mess of Eastern rhythms and “beats so evil.” It was very, very weird, but very, very cool and most certainly unexpected. Long before the album even had a release date, M.I.A. Even the cover art, depicting the emcee as a Muammar Gaddafi type despotic figure over an old school 8-bit clash of garish colors, should give some indication of the cross-continental beat banging chaos that lies therein. The album is a balance of extremes, placing an even greater emphasis on Third World politics while dropping a heavy dose of product placement. With Kala (named for her mother), Maya Arulpragasam takes similar ideas and runs with them at breakneck speeds into far off destinations. M.I.A.’s debut Arular (named for her father) was as bold as opening statements get, balancing heavy political topics with lighthearted humor, heavy grime beats with often minimal production, and influences so diverse, when funneled into a whole sounded almost nothing like the sum of their parts.
She is not content to be merely “pop,” “rap,” “indie rock” or, worse yet, “world music,” and yet she is all these things, a cultural mash-up of dozens of sounds and styles, like criss-crossing frequencies of pirate stations in remote locales. It should come as no surprise then, that such diverse global influences penetrate her work, but that said, she is also an artist who is not bound by genre. Her travel itinerary reads like a Lonely Planet résumé, having written and recorded second album Kala in locations as widespread as India, Trinidad, Baltimore, Australia and Japan. is an artist without borders, in practically every sense.
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