Kala is an intoxicating junk-culture travelogue, a genre-humping mash-up of Bollywood rumbles, shrieking guitars and machine-gun rhymes.
Since 2005’s Arular, Tamil/London rapper M.I.A. has embarked on a horizon-stretching jaunt around the world, a voyage that has infused her second album with bite, wit and ambition. Inspired by trips to Libya, Bangladesh and the Caribbean, Kala is an intoxicating junk-culture travelogue, a genre-humping mash-up of Bollywood rumbles, shrieking guitars and machine-gun rhymes. Perhaps the outstanding moment is ‘$20’: an electro slow-burner that welds the chorus from the Pixies’ ‘Where is my Mind?’ to a treacle-slow ‘Blue Monday’ bass judder.
Elsewhere, 'Jimmy' is a sitar-charged celebration of glitter-ball kitsch (the melody is genuine Bollywood, sampling the song ‘Jimmy Jimmy Aaja’ from 1982 Saturday Night homage Disco Dancer), while ‘Bamboo Banger’, blends nonsense rhymes (“big tiger, jungle jammer, bamboo banga”), baile horns and bhangra grooves. Certainly it’s far more interesting than the record's solitary raspberry, the Britney-visits-the-Asian market hooey of ‘Come Around’, the dashed-off Timbaland hook-up that closes the record (plans for Timbaland to produce the entirety of Kala were scotched following M.I.A.’s US visa woes).
Ladies and gentlemen, fear her roar.
Making GaGa's 'Telephone' vid look like something by Doris Day, M.I.A.'s 'Born Free' music video-cum-short film is obscene, attention-seeking and ruthlessly violent, making it a perfect partner for the track itself. Ethnic cleansing, middle-aged sex and a milion other things I'm not comfortable seeing on a Wednesday afternoon get an airing in the Sri Lankan renaissance woman's vid, which has been banned by the powers that be at YouTube. I'll let you make up your own mind on the gratuitous violence, but I challenge anyone to knock French director Romain Gavras' stunning cinematography.
Read More M.I.A. has seen the graphic music video for her single ‘Born Free’ removed from You Tube.
Read More M.I.A. has explained her reasons for pulling her European tour, which was to have included a Dublin Tripod stop-off on June 27.
Read More Having played a blinder last year at the Electric Picnic, M.I.A. has announced a Dublin Tripod date on June 27.
Read More One of the star turns at this year’s Electric Picnic, M.I.A, returns on December 7 for her own headline show in the Phoenix Park Big Top.
Read More German DJ/producer M.I.A. hasn’t released a record in nearly two years, but ‘Safe Night’ makes up for lost time, its rubbery drums, dissected vocals and mournful bassline sounding like a voyeuristic flick through her diary.
Read More The sight of a list of remixes on a single is usually a guarantee of fairly dull times ahead...
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