'Arular' is the debut album from Sri Lankan born Maya Arulpragasam aka MIA. The album's mix of clanking beats, analogue stabs, and quirky samples recalls Dizzee Rascal's groundbreaking debut 'Boy In Da Corner' and features guest production from Diplo, Richard X, and Pulp's Steve Mackey.

Mar 2005

Aged just 11, M.I.A. (aka Maya Arulpragasam) became a refugee of war. Like many others, her family were forced to flee Sri Lanka when the Sinhala-Tamil conflict began to grip the country in the mid-eighties. Left with no choice but to face up to the daunting reality of restarting their lives in a foreign land, they found themselves a million miles away from paradise isle and on a notorious housing estate in Mitcham.

Quickly adapting to her new surroundings, she has gone from those dark days to where she is today, on the verge of stardom. Already established as an artist of some note (she was once shortlisted for the Alternative Turner Prize, no less), her attentions have now turned to music.

Having sent out shockwaves with her singles ('Galang' and 'Sunshowers'), an appearance on the excellent Richard X remix of Ciara's 'Goodies' and her mixtape collaboration with Diplo ('Piracy Funds Terrorism'), M.I.A is now set to unleash her awesome debut album 'Arular'. The mongrel mix of hip-hop, ragga, dancehall, electro and pop alongside uncompromising, spitting lyrics are all there to hear - it's been a worthwhile wait.

• OMM (12/05, p.46) - "...one of the year's most exuberant records."

Even before M.I.A. (Maya Arulpragasam) debuted in 2005 with ARULAR, the blogosphere was already abuzz about her, engaging in the kind of discourse normally reserved for academic dissertations. Whether hailed as a canny postmodern pastiche or dismissed as inauthentic cultural pirating, the music, a lively pan-global mash-up of regional dance music styles, seemed to be emanating simultaneously from every ghetto, favela, and council-flat within earshot. As if to call out her detractors, M.I.A. returns for another shot of explosive, politically charged and globally conscious dance music on her second album, KALA.
Lacking the patchwork quality of the debut, KALA is a more cohesive and polished affair, though it matches its predecessor for shear visceral thrills. Recorded across several different continents, and featuring the production talents of Timbaland, Switch, and Blaqstarr, as well as longstanding collaborator Diplo, the globetrotting beat makers mine sources as varied as funk carioca, Baltimore bounce, and the occasional ludicrously placed sound-effect (a squawking chicken). The gloriously bombastic lead single, "Boyz," kicks off the party with a blaring horn loop, carnival percussion, and a stuttering Bollywood vocal sample, while M.I.A. merrily chants the chorus in her sing-song faux patois. The twittering, beat-heavy "Bird Flu" sounds a bit like what you might expect--jagged beats create syncopated poly-rhythms, while birds chirp feverishly against Arulpragasam's bratty invective. But the irreverent cultural re-appropriation doesn't stop at her borrowing from the third world; clever nods to the Clash, New Order, and even Jonathan Richman appear in unexpected and cheeky combinations, offering further proof that M.I.A.'s potent cross-cultural grab bag is as sonically audacious as ever.

The daughter of a former member of Sri Lankan rebel group the Tamil Tigers, singer/rapper M.I.A. grew up in London where she was schooled on American hip-hop, U.K. club sounds, and world rhythms. With all these sounds in tow, M.I.A. went on to create an infectious, hyperactive, cross-cultural musical hybrid best represented by her ubiquitous 2004 single, "Galang." A stridently political performer (noticeable in everything from her visual art to her music), M.I.A.'s often controversial status as an activist came to a head in 2006 when she was denied a visa and entry into the United States.