On her new 'Kala,' M.I.A. speaks out for the world's voiceless

August 21, 2007|Saul Austerlitz, Globe Correspondent

"I put people on the map that never seen a map," M.I.A. boasts on "20 Dollar," a track from her hotly anticipated second album, "Kala," out today on Interscope. The Sri Lankan-British MC's first album, "Arular," was the hipster album of 2005, thanks to its bhangra-meets-electroclash sizzle accompanied by a muddled leftist agenda of Third World rights and sympathies for the Tamil Tigers and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

"Arular" was an exciting but ultimately unsubstantial accomplishment, a passionate endeavor whose beat science could not mask a fundamental lack of political savvy. With "Kala," M.I.A. has found a new sound, and subject matter to match. "Kala" widens M.I.A.'s sonic palette, incorporating Brazilian samba drumming, Indian filmi soundtracks, and Eurodisco strings into the mix. In addition to rapping, she sings on "Jimmy," sounding like Yoko (circa "Double Fantasy").

With production assists from Timbaland, Diplo, Blaqstarr, and African Boy, "Kala" ventures beyond sloganeering toward an awareness of the world beyond the West, including its poverty, its anger, and its hope. On songs like "Jimmy" and "Hussel," M.I.A. celebrates the young and desperate around the world, channeling their voices and their struggles through the filter of her singsongy raps.

Unsurprisingly for someone who has repeatedly expressed an allegiance to the Tamil Tigers (a Sri Lankan group branded a terrorist organization by the US government), M.I.A. betrays a dismayingly easy relationship to violence in her lyrics. AK-47s and gunfire speckle her songs, and violence becomes a catchall solution to intractable problems: "Hands up, guns out, represent the world town," she chants on "World Town," and one wishes that her hands were filled with something else. The hustle, that traditional object of hip-hop affection, dominates the subject matter of "Kala," but unlike, say, T.I. (who gets a shout-out in "20 Dollar"), M.I.A. looks to the invisible of the global underclass who must scrape together a living by any means necessary. She salutes not the accumulation of wealth but survival.

After a shaky start with "Arular," "Kala" crowns M.I.A. as the voice of the global voiceless -- their conscience and their memory.