M.I.A. rocks it on Kala. She teamed up w/Timbaland for this album. The beats make you want to get up and shake it. This music helps me unwind from a stressful day of work. I also recommend it for when you are running on your treadmill. The beats are unlike anything America has ever heard. She represents for us Indian girls! She raps about current events and politics. I especially love "Paper Planes" and "Come Around". Her music speaks to you. Check it out. You won't be sorry!!
:)

I'm intrigued. I have put myself into the position of responsibility to purchase a wide range of music that I might not otherwise be familiar with, and Kala is just such a purchase.

Quite honestly, I love her accent, and I love her quirky sense of style and artistic chaos. And that translates to the music. The irony being that the music is so "happy" and up-beat, and contrary to the opinion of another (obviously rhythmically challenged) reviewer, it is incredibly dance-able. In fact, if you do not move, then you either detest the music, or you have no sense of rhythm.

From the perspective of a musician and a bit of a "purist", the concept of sampling is a turn-off to me. However, when looking at the genius of such artists as John Cage (love him or hate him, he was groundbreaking, and the real father of techno-beats) and other such innovators, I can appreciate someone who can take a wide range of sounds and styles and incorporate them all into one place (this album). Of course, it is a bit chaotic, but I think that's exactly what M.I.A. had in mind (have you SEEN her wardrobe?). She wants you to think. She doesn't care if you like it or not, she is more interested in getting a reaction... mission accomplished.

The Timbland track was just a marketing trick to get more exposure... genius, sweetie! She put it at the end, so it has no real affect on the overall feeling of the album, and still the name of the US artist will bring more people to her music.

Despite the concern that she was unable to spend time in the US working on this album, I think that was actually one of the best things that happened to her in this case. Had she come here, the sound would have been diluted and made entirely too common. Instead, we have originality.

No bones about it, girl can't sing. But she's not marketing herself as a singer, but as a musical artist. She is able to create tracks using the tools available, and not being a musician to speak of, she simply takes existing sounds and arranges them into a tapestry of sound that is jarring, pleasant, irritating and endearing all at the same time!

This is a study in sound variations. Good job!

if you like this type of music then I think that you might like Crystal Castles better. I think the beats are much better, the vocals are more interesting and the creativity is just, overall, stronger.

ALSO - CC is on a non-RIAA label. If that matters to you. It does to me.

MIA has seemed to get a lot of publicity by magazines and by Amazon, so I thought I check it out. I consider myself to be diverse in most music, so I always try to give some modern pop/hip hop a fair chance. Most of it might wind up in my garbage can, but that is besides the point. I have to admit some of MIA material is somewhat catchy, and that is the only reason that I gave it two stars, but folks, this has been done before. I dont understand where this is ground-breaking. Am I missing something? This is pretty much sampling over synthisised vocal, which is fine, but its not something that hasnt been done before. As a fan of Electronica, I can tell you that this has been done, and it was done over 15yrs ago when Techno become more complex and starting using more then just a four on the floor beat. Juno Reactor, Plastikman, Orbital, Meet Beat Manifesto, are just some old-school electronica acts that incoporated beats and vocal into a mish-mosh of chopped up blips and bleerps. Even the Prodigy who some of you might remember from the late 90's when they finally broke into the world of pop (but they were together since 91 when Experience was wrote, and released in 92)used some of this format. Some catchy stuff? sure, is it very good? not really. I will listen to fifty different electronica artist before I come back to this, as some of it is just to damn poppy and absurd.

This cd is great. It's fresh, new, invigorating, original, and fun. Personally, I love it for upbeat workout music. If you like M.I.A., check out Santogold as well.

I hate that first of all, she had to sample The Clash and everytime they play her song on the radio, I think it is The Clash.
This is really nothing more than crappy beat music. People seem to rave about it and I cannot understand why. The lyrics are not great, the background music is not original or anything.

I am a huge music fan and historian, and MIA is one of the most overrated artists of the new age. I respect her and her art, but just because you love music does not mean you can make it worth a darn. I am living proof of that. Haha.

Outrageous genius. The catchiest dance album I've heard in five years. This is one of those "something new" moments in music that come along only once in a long while but change everything once they do.

This artist is from Sri Lanka, and she's got a serious groove! Interesting twists with her beats, but nothing complex. Very catchy, but lyrics are real. Good imagery, good flow, uses diverse instruments. Definitive! A good buy!

From the minute I heard Galang I knew I had touched upon something groundbreaking, fresh, and inspiring. Kala is a sleeker more polished extension of the genius M.I.A displays on Arular.
I get mixed reviews when I share this music with people...people either love it or hate it. I believe the people that hate it so vehemently or don't get it can't easily put it into a category and therefore dismiss it. Some of the ignorance about M.I.A on this board confuses me. Her success can't all be attributed to "great production" as she produced most of her first album in her bedroom!! Also, she is an incredible lyricist and poet who uses repetition, abstract images, and mixes nonsense with meaning quite eloquently. A lot of negative reviews on this board tend to be full of empty criticality - "i don't get it" or "it's repetitive" or "she's not good". A third grader could write something more personally reflective and soulful. Don't hate on M.I.A just because you don't care for her - we should be respecting young people who are willing to cross-genres and break boundaries...it takes a lot of courage!

Hi, this cd was ok. I listened to a few songs on a friends copy and thought it was worth purchasing. Plus i love that trendy song thats she has a video for or whatever.
All in all there are 2 songs i really like, 1 that is ok. I dont even remember there names. and the rest is too techno, electronic, repedative for me.

Over a few years, British musician MIA - aka Mathangi Arulpragasam - has realised far-flung ambitions.
Her 2005 debut album "Arular" proved an electric shock to the system, its ballsy mashup of street styles and pop hooks earning a Mercury nomination in U.K.
Mia's new album "Kala" is named after her mother, but like "Arular" it mixes up musical ideas from around the world and crams them into a club- and radio-friendly collage of tunes.
This CD drives her music in even more intrepid directions
In fact this time, rather than work with British producers such as Steve Mackey of Pulp and the pop guru Richard X, MIA travelled widely to authentically capture the world music that intrigues her.
The result is fantastic.
"Birdflu" features the sound of traditional Indian drummers, whom MIA recorded on a trip to the sub-continent last year.
"Down River" throbs with didgeridoo she recorded at a workshop for aboriginal children in Australia. The tribal pound of "Hussel", meanwhile, was recorded with a Nigerian-born London-based rapper, African Boy.
Whereas "Arular" was dominated by bouncy funk carioca beats, "Kala" feels like a more mixed, cosmopolitan affair.Recorded in India, Australia, Trinidad, Japan, Britain and Baltimore with producers including Switch and Blaqstarr, it sounds like an infectious international travelogue.
Looking at that luminous, vibrant front cover, or the ludicrously colourful video for "Boyz", M.I.A. seems more like a textile artist than anything else.
If the driving force behind her music is a restless, globe-trotting quest for identity, that makes sense - a collage is a beautiful way of drawing disparate pieces together to create a whole that exists as something important in itself.
"Kala" meets the critics head on, taking her dancefloor smash-and-grab sound global.
She twangs the boundaries of taste both lyrically ("Take me on a genocide tour/Take me on a trip to Darfur") and musically. But a knockout's a knockout, however messy the bout.
All in all, Kala is an intense, body-shaking, mind-bending album, far more ambitious than most pop around.
My favourite tracks are "Paper Planes", "20 Dollars" and "Turn".

Mia's beats are good reminiscent of the 1980's and early 1990's is diffidently apart of the "Look at Me" generation thank goodness she has something worth listening to.

We also Funked the war with this CD at the 5th Anniversary protestsin Washington, DC MIA Funks it up. Power to the People.

Plain and simple, some people hate originality. If it isn't your gangsta rap, tight pants and shirt wearing little rockers, spewing out the same garbage over and over and over again, then people don't want anything to do with it. MIA is an amazing artist and is freshening up the air with her material.

My friends insisted that I, as a DJ, listen to this, probably in hopes that I would love it and fit it into as many sets as possible. They couldn't have been more disappointed, because I loathed it the first time I heard it--I could not, for the life of me, understand why M.I.A. was receiving so much industry buzz and artist acclaim. I still wonder whether she's a true innovator, and whether her star can rise any further than it has already. But regardless, an amazing thing happened. I couldn't get the CD out of my car player, and the more I listened, the more I was enamoured with the songs, the production, her quirky and oft-nonsensical lyrics, and the flow of the songs (Timbaland-produced "Come Around," "The Turn," and the vaguely Sneaker Pimps-sounding "$20" are the standout tracks). Perhaps the secret is Kala's deceptively simple-sounding arrangements; I don't know. But one is missing out on something irrepressibly fun, edgy, and savvy if one dismisses it at first listen Multiple plays will, I assure you, make you a believer in the end.

Don't do it! Don't even think about it. The "freshness" wears off this CD in a matter of seconds. MIA's "new sound" comes across like a dying giraffe (on speed). There is a reason this thing is sold for under $6, because it is an absolute waste of your time to listen to it, and mine to even write about it! Please disappear into mediocrity, Ms. MIA, your 15 minutes are up. BTW, they made me give this album one star. When it doesn't even deserve that. Overrated. Over hyped. Over reviewed.

I heard this album was supposed to be one of the best albums of the year. I just don't see it. I didn't like any of the songs except for Paper Planes.

It's always great to find a great "experimental", "ground breaking", "inspiring" and "imaginative" album that stands out of the common and top 40 music. Examples of this kind of music they are many (thank God), but this album is NOT. It is dull, childish, REPETITIVE, PREDICTABLE, no hooks, no melody, no great beats. Don't believe the hype, this is not COOL MUSIC to show your friends, you will end with a headache. Save your money and look elsewhere.

I can only listen to a couple of songs on this album. Not that it's a bad one, it's just that it's not my style of music.

I think for better or worse everyone has done a decent job of breaking down what this music is all about. So I will just give my score: There are three or so very outstanding songs and moments on this disc. She even managed to shoehorn The Pixies into the mix! A couple of songs fall flat and do not fit in so well with the rest. Everything else is good and will probably grow on me with repeated listening. I often found myself grooving and moving to the rhythms and the production. Very produced, but in a good way. I am not disappointed with this purchase. I took a chance on a song I heard on KCRW and I am satisfied. If you are curious at this point, you will probably enjoy M.I.A.

This CD is AMAZING. luv the beats, the songs & the lyrics. it's so fresh and out of the ordinary you can't help but wanna rock out to this in your car. luv it.

Attention! M.I.A., one of the most surprising hits of 2005, has released her sophomore album, Kala! And I am pleased to report that she has not been affected by the sophomore slump. This album features more tongue-in-cheek songwriting as well as top-notch production from the likes of Fidget House maestro Switch, and hip-hop powerhouse Timbaland.

Let me start at the beginning. Arular, the debut album from Maya Arul (we affectionately know her as M.I.A.) held some definite hits with Galang, Bucky Done Gun, and Pull Up The People, but it lacked an album cohesion that would have made the entire experience unforgettable. She has found that cohesion with Kala.

From the first song, Bamboo Banger, you can see she's onto something. While Bamboo Banger doesn't have the most expansive lyrics ever, what is truly cool about this song is the progressive beat that gets more and more complicated over the duration of the song. This leads quite nicely into Bird Flu, a pounding thumper with what sounds like a group of small children and something that resembles a swan being choked. As strange as that sounds, it works quite well. This is a great track. Next we have the lead single, Boyz, a track produced by Switch. While nowhere near as catchy as Galang, Boyz has its own undeniable charm. You may want to take time off between repeated listens, as I've found it starts to grate a little the more you listen to it. Luckily, you have the rest of the album to distract you! Jimmy, the next single off the album, is based on a song from Bollywood's Disco Dancer. This is probably the tamest song of her career, but it's great and should not be overlooked.

Other standout tracks include $20, which samples New Order's Blue Monday, slowed down to a nice hip groove overlayed at first with M.I.A.'s wandering but ethereal voice and then with her lyrics. This song is about the difference of $20 here and $20 where she comes from. A great lyric from this song is I put people on the map that never seen a map. Paper Planes, my personal favorite, is a happy tune with a catchy laid-back r&b beat. Wait, happy What Here is the chorus:

All I wanna do is
BANG BANG BANG BANG
And I
Click Register Sound
And take your money

How pleasant! And absolutely genius. I love this woman.

Summary - This is a DO NOT MISS album, one of the best of 2007, and immensely better than her previous album. This album will go places.

Buy this CD. She's an original fantastic artist. There's no false notes and she has a lot to say in between beats.

Her beats are flawless and her lyrics are brilliant. Need I say more? M.I.A. has invented her own style mixing dancehall, electronica, hip-hop, rap and reggae. There's a little bit of everything on Kala and anyone willing to discover great music will appreciate it. M.I.A. came back so much more to say and you know what? It works. Her political struggles are something well noted on the album as well as other global problems going on with war politics and genocide. This isn't your average pop princess her. M.I.A.s got the edgy beats and lyrics that will keep you playing Kala for months. My favorites from the album are Paper Planes and Boyz. If you liked/loved Arular, Kala will blow you away. Kala

I have to say I first listened to this album at Virgin records and was intrigued but not yet convinced. However I found myself going back to the store 3 times over one week to hear it again. I finally bought it and well it plays over and over in my car. It is a really addictive album with lots of meaning behind it. I highly recommend it and for those who don't get it right away I say that it is an acquired taste.

Simply the most innovative artist out there! Kala makes me feel cool and worldly and when I find a CD that makes me "feel" a certain way, I know it is gonna be big. I LOVE music of all kinds but usually tend to stick with contemporary folk because that seems to be the only genre that has had the nerve to break away from the MTV scene (i.e. quality of music based on how somone looks rather than talent). Over the past couple of months though I have been getting into "house music" more and more since there are so many new things being done within that realm. When I heard "Bamboo Banga" I knew this was something not only "new" but way ahead of it's time. I was NOT dissapointed when I heard the whole CD and now I cannot stop listening to it. Her voice is mesmerizing. Thank god an artist has come along that can breath some much needed diversity and attitude into popular music.

Glistens like the new Cibo Mato ("Paper Planes" = "Clouds") but, with agro ideology and sonic recklessness, hits more like the new PiL ("Bird Flu" = "Pied Piper"). Laptop grunge, exotica hiphop, bayonet beats, bipolar samples, schizophrenic squarewaves with menacing messages - rave agitprop. Imbricated din. Download, at once, "Bamboo Banger,""Boyz," "XR2" and "$20." If Arular was Devo, Kala is the Slits; less funk, more flange - "MIA coming back with power, power" - dangerous nursery rhymes, communist disco. Mathangi Arulpragasam is Tania set to OCD bpm. Up against the wall, bourgeois!

...M.I.A. produced Arular herself!! Diplo only co-produced Bucky Done Gun...the rest of the tracks are Maya's!

Off-topic digression aside, Kala is an excellent album. Go buy it now!

How cool is this? They clearly do things a bit differently over there in Sri Lanka. (Yes, I know she's UK-based at this point.)

This is one of the oddest albums I've heard in many months, and exhilaratingly so. What with the electronic mayhem, mad tribal drumming, and political fury, it reminds me of nothing so much as the classic "Bonk" by the Australian band Big Pig -- but fed through a blender and amped up for a weirder and more dangerous millennium. "I'm knocking on the doors of your Hummer, Hummer"...you hear that, Gov. Schwarzenegger? I think she's coming for you.

Tori Amos, Imogen Heap, and Vienna Teng officially have a new rival for my fanboy affections. (I'm sure they're in great distress.)

M.I.A.'s first album "Arular" hypnotized me with incredible lyrics and outstanding beats, so I was beyond excited when I found out in a magazine that she was coming out with her sophomore album "Kala" over the summer. The day it came out, I dragged my mother to the music store near my aunt's house in Oregon and instantly bought it, and what an outstanding buy it was!

This album combines a mix of dance, electro-pop, techno, rock, hip-hop and reggae into one. Each song is combined with free-dance songs (Boyz) to slow, mellow, easy-listening songs (Paper Planes, The Turn) to club beats (XR2, Bird Flu) to a mix of every genre I think I've ever heard of.

Her voice is incredible, and this album is better than any album I have ever owned. It is better than the popular stuff people today are listening to. If you want something different and fun, this album is for you.

This is a must-buy! Incredible beats, incredible lyrics, incredible songs, incredible singer, incredible ALBUM!!! It's all incredible! You won't be disappointed with the result of this CD.

A great CD all-around. It opens with the bumping "Bamboo Banger" which has a terrific chorus but gets a tad repetitive. Other standouts include the radio-friendly "Paper Planes" and "Hussel" ft. Afrikan Boy. One of the best CD's I've bought to date.

The album is great. It brings out her rebellious view on life while keeping her views on war and killing admirable. The beats are inspirational for all djs moved by Diplo.
I recommend it to those who aren't afraid to hear something new, challenging, and above all audacious.

Reading the reviews of this work months after its release is interesting. M.I.A. has created a singular work in Kala that seems to intoxicate and aggravate people in equal proportions. Ratings for this album could go from 0 (get this thing out of my house immediately) to 5 stars (why has this thing called "Bamboo Banga" taken up residence in my head?).

I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because of the Timbaland track, which somebody else mentioned as the album's drawback. It breaks the spell the album casts over the appreciative listener. On the other hand, I understand M.I.A. put aside many other celebrity-supported tracks that could have appeared on the album and perhaps made her more money. Her comments that she would rather be about the millions without a voice rather than being about "me" seem genuine on Kala.

I don't know much about hip-hop or most current pop music--most of it's not made for the demographic of a 50-year-old white male. Kala does remind me of other, older works that would seem to have no relation to it on the surface. There's noise-as-music as in early Sonic Youth, for example. It may be mainly a dance record, but an appreciation of avant-garde and experimental music may also make you a Kala candidate.

That's not to say that the music is self-conscious or cerebral (But: "People think we're stupid but we're not," M.I.A. deadpans in "XR2"). This is more of a field recording for the digital age than a conservatory experiment. And Maya Arulpragasam has the first-hand experience and credibility to base her work on indigenous sounds without being a "cultural tourist."

Arulpragasam's father left the family to join the Tamil Tiger revolutionary movement in Sri Lanka, where civil war still simmers. Human rights violations have abounded there. Maya lived in Sri Lanka until 1986, when at age 11 she came with her family to live in the Phipps Bridge Housing 'Estate,' a notoriously crime-ridden London housing project of the old-school, high-rise variety.

So, superficially, the sound you might expect from M.I.A.'s background is something like a mixture of early Clash and Mickey Hart's Planet Drum projects. Music that alternately seduces with rhythm and pummels with attitude. That's true as far as it goes, but there's much more going on here.

M.I.A. hasn't shown great chops as a singer, but that's not required here. When paired with the barrage of percussion and exotic (to Western ears) instruments, her voice becomes incantatory, and the spell is woven more and more tightly as the repetitions build. And songs like the Bollywood send-up "Jimmy" are just a lot of fun, too.

Kala can be off-putting on the first listen, but if your tastes in music are adventurous, give it a fair hearing. It can be appreciated both on and off the dance floor.

I have to admit that I've heard all the songs before on YouTube...so it feels like I'm only getting half the experience w/o the video, but the CD is so good that it doesn't matter! I didn't like M.I.A until I heard Jimmy and now, I'm hooked hardcore. I've even gotten my roommate to dance with me to "Boyz."

I can't stop listening to this disc. I'm what MIA refers to as a geezer. At 50 yo, I was in a Barnes and Noble listening to discs and hoping for something to grab me that wasn't more of the same, novelty, or lip gloss on a pig. Rarely happens, but I picked up KALA and even with the 20 seconds per song could tell this was just mouth wateringly fresh and exciting.

After hearing the entire disc (over and over) I think it's really fabulous for its originality, sense of style, point of view, political passion, playfulness, and just fun. It's funny how a prerequisite for any superlative disc is that it sounds like the performers had a blast making it. Clearly the case here.

I also later bought Arular and also enjoy it, but found Kala to be more refined, inventive, accessible and distinctive. But I'll take anything I can get from this remarkable artist. M.I.A. give me more and keep us geezers happy (along with everyone else).