(t5!) Heroes Of The Zeroes Albums: #24: M.I.A. – Kala (2007)

Mathangi Arulpragasam, better known to the world as M.I.A., is the most bloggable (I just made up that word) female of the entire decade; everything about her is designed to be talked about by the internet: She’s multiculturally hot, being a Sri Lankan from England; she’s politically active, and it makes her an intelligent source for quotes, especially against the War on Terror and human rights abuse; she’s a mixer and matcher of different languages, heritage, and styles of music; she dated and collaborated with Diplo, one of the most blogly (another word I made up) acclaimed DJ’s around the world; she’s a fashion daredevil; she was being talked about by bloggers before they even heard a note from her. Then they heard a note, to the tune of the block-party-rocking “Galang” from her debut album Arular, and it validated all the praise that’s being written about her.

As infinitely interesting M.I.A. is, the only thing that should matter is what her music sounds like, and from what we heard in her sophomore follow-up Kala, it sounds gargantuan. It’s a gallimaufry of robust house beats, high-powered synths, bhangra influences, multi-language chants, digiridoos, Southern hip-hop snap tracks, The Clash, New Order and Pixies nods, Australian aboriginal rap verses, Nintendo lasers, Timbaland contributions, gunfire and cash machine bangs and dings, exotic woodwinds, fowl noises, zooming car sounds, and so and so forth. I think I heard a Trinidad & Tobagan kitchen sink in there somewhere. But knowing what noise is in here, or where it’s from isn’t important either. The aphitheater of sound it creates when it’s all puréed together is truly aesthetically gratifying.

Obviously M.I.A. is in in there too, and even admist the aural avalanche, you wouldn’t miss her. Her vocals vary from a sulky alto to a volatile growl. Of course, her politics in the verses can’t be avoided either. In the gliding “Jimmy”, she takes us through a tour of her going through a genocide tour, a date setting for her and her Rwandan lover. In the ubiquitous “Paper Planes”, she alludes to the unavoidable truth that dealing and hustling are the only means of income for chidren in some unfortunate corners of the world. In the rambunctious “Bamboo Banga”, she subtly took shots at third world countries. She mentioned in an interview: “Nobody wants to be dancing to political songs. Every bit of music out there that’s making it into the mainstream is really about nothing. I wanted to see if I could write songs about something important and make it sound like nothing. And it kind of worked.” It kind of worked.

Near the end of the decade, Ms. Arulpragasam has graduated from a blogger darling to a pop icon, and it’s all thanks to Kala—well, “Paper Planes” mostly, being soundtracked everywhere. In all likelihood, she will be remembered as one of the most crucial one-hit wonders of music history, in the same variety as The Flaming Lips and Lou Reed, an underground phenomenon that struck gold once. But if we’re lucky, she follows up in the tens with an album as phenomenal as Kala. If we’re lucky, you’ll be reading about M.I.A. from music history books thirty years from now, instead of in our blogs like this composed from our parents’ basements.