Long Overdue

So, where does one start when writing about Maya Arulpragasm? Let's get personal: Maya, A.K.A. M.I.A. first caught my ear in 2004 on internet radio. The song in particular, "10," possibly describes, in a way fit for your ears, what excitement is. I was rapt, prepared to bow down to something so new, a plane ticket to anywhere that wasn't the west, a magnifying glass held over Maya's homeland, the tiny island of Sri Lanka. Long story short, her debut, Arular, dropped in March 2005 and after months of raw, hot anticipation it became my favorite record of that year.
After Arular immediately established itself as a timeless classic, what next? I've fallen in love musically many times since then. Bands came and most went but the question lingered. It's been answered.
Fierce and urgent drumming opens Kala, letting you know straight away what you're going to be served. Arular was M.I.A.'s entrance, a polite hello. Kala is her coup d'etat, taking everything you think you know or believe about music and hacking it down like stalks of bamboo. Opener "Bamboo Banga" pins us against wall and let's us know this is her show. What's surprising is our incredible willingness to follow.
"Bird Flu" predictably squawks along whilst Maya pokes fun at our idea of her, ups her self-image throws at us a portrait of a sick 21st century third-world. The Bollywood kitsch of "Jimmy" is a welcome respite following the chaotic politics in the hook-laden "Boyz." It's obviously catchy and its driving string sample and hissing hi-hats wouldn't sound out of place at Studio 54.
Afterward, the record moves forward, becoming slightly darker along the way. M.I.A. creates for us a world barely holding on to infrastructure, made complete by ghetto superstars Afrikan Boy (on "Hussel") and the little children of the Wilcannia Mob. It's a hot place, where rebellion is a reality happening in the jungle outside the city wall and Kala plays on continuous repeat from the sky.
"Hussel" boasts not just the aforementioned appearance by soon-to-be sensation Afrikan Boy, but also, in a year saturated with synthesizers (Kanye, Timbaland,) the hookiest keyboard line laid to hard disk in 2007. It's a tirade against money and the lengths people go through to get it. "Why has everyone got hustle on their mind?" Poverty anthem "Mango Pickle Down River" is almost cute with its chorus rapped by kids ("almost 10") and ambling, yes river-like, beat.
The album's centerpiece, "20$," is gorgeous in its huge-sounding simplicity and genius in its flawless production-a heavy beat with an 808 kick and a slithering keyboard, huge snare and not much else. Her lyrics globetrot from issue to issue-western materialism, Muslim extremism, the military dictatorships of Africa (the songs title is a reference to how much you need to pay to buy an AK-47 in a given African country,) living on the dole in London, the internet... It's all there, it's smart, she's smart, we love it, she's qualified.
"Down River," "The Turn," and "XR2" continue to pair smart production and enigmatic beats with lyrics fit for the "third-world democracy" she idealizes in her music. The closer, "Come Around (ft. Timbaland)," is better than almost all of what you hear elsewhere and fits in with the rest of Kala, but it almost feels useless after the outright masterpiece "Paper Planes."
The track feels to me like a summation of everything she tries to prove over the course of the record. It just sounds revolutionary without even needing a meaningful set of lyrics (which it still delivers) to back it up. It's fitting then that a sample of revolutionary music's godfathers the Clash forms the basis of the song which...is pretty much glorious. That's the only way that I can describe it, because listening to it she describes for me everything that I will ever need to hear ever again. On a record where she seeks to prove herself, nothing does so more than a song that makes me not want to listen to anything else but it ever again. It's beautiful and angry but oh-so-much-more all in the same instant. Songs like "Paper Planes" are the reason I even bother to listen to music in the first place and trying to describe that idea is futile.
And so the record ends with us, me at least, wondering not what's next but prepared to defend good, produce section fresh music until the curtain has been closed on the world's last bad act. And that's the way it should be.

There's my review of Kala... which is an awesome record actually. I decided to write it after what I saw last night. Saturday was very busy, lots of back and forth and brief encounters so I wasn't really looking forward to getting my dance on with a bunch of bandwagon jumpers at the M.I.A. show. Well my sister and I went anyway with lots of other good people (the Dude, Kara and Alexa Kalmbach, Anna, Dunna, Kit, Kelly G, Frankie, Kate, Benj) and I experienced something awesome. It was unreal and I'm not even going to bother unless you were there and feel like rehashing it with me via AIM (wolfpartyjoe) or myspace messages. The Cool Kids and Amanda Blank opened and they were good also.

Goodnight!