The Post-Rockist

M.I.A. - 20 Dollar
M.I.A. - Paper Planes
(from Kala)

I didn’t care much for Arular. In fact, you might say that I felt jilted. Personally affronted, even. As if M.I.A., Diplo, and a cabal of hipper-than-thou Chicago tastemakers had secretly convened to conjure a record that was so unmistakably bad that you had to be a nitwit to admit liking it in public. And then they proceeded to market it as the most exciting and original album of 2005.

After such an offense, I should have nothing further to do with Ms. Maya Arulpragasm. Nevertheless, she persisted in crawling into my awareness. She persisted with the neon retro ’80s style that I thought was finally starting to slip out of fashion again. She persisted with her tacky music videos that were such egregious eyesores that it was difficult to look away. She persisted with the whole Sri Lankan Tamil business, which I tend to brush off from an aesthetic standpoint but nonetheless makes me uneasy. She persisted even in bashing her former boyfriend/DJ and Chicago critics that I had erroneously assumed she was in cahoots with. She persisted, and I caved.

And now I’m shocked to find myself saying that Kala is one of the most exciting and original albums of 2007. Much like TV On the Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain, Kala sustains itself by forging a rich landscape of organic and post-industrial tones, and sets itself apart with a distinctive voice that can, at a switch, be mixed and modulated to sound like a chorus of hundreds, or stripped down to sound like the intimate whispers of a lover. But unlike Cookie Mountain, which relied on many traditional rhythms that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on any ’90s alternative album, Kala is imbued with such a vibrant mix of post-colonial rhythms that it sounds as though the album simply emerged out of some alternate future. How else could you explain an album so chock full of 21st Centural carnival esoterica - booming dhol drums, whistles, police sirens, car horns, shouting street urchins - all synthesized to mesh with a Bollywood bounce and Baile Funk swagger.

Take the song “20 Dollar,” for instance. The bass line from New Order’s “Blue Monday” is slowed down, almost to the point of sounding reversed. M.I.A.’s voice is robotically harmonized, looping over itself in gurgles and squalls, repeating the chorus to the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” like a chilling, apocalyptic mantra. And then, with kinetic precision, she hopscotches around topics of war, globalization, and the vapidity of our culture. It’s frighteningly good, but more accurately, it’s plain frightening.

On the flipside is the sunny dub ballad “Paper Planes,” the only track produced by her ex, Diplo. The song, with samples from The Clash’s “Straight to Hell,” is making fun of her recent visa problems that prevented her from coming to the United States to record with Timbaland. With a smile and a wink M.I.A. plays up just how big of a threat she is. “All I wanna do is (*BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!*) and (*KA-CHING!*) and a-take your money,” she sings on the hook. The gunshots sound so musical and joyous that it occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve thought of the phrase “Happiness is a warm gun” and it didn’t have to be a metaphor for heroin.

Ultimately, her politics are unconvincing, or, at best, incoherent. The idea that her music is political, however, is essential to maintaining her image as an internationalist, culture-clashing diva. It gives her “edge.” Not that she needs it - she’s already one of the most polarizing personalities in music today. She’s brash and uncategorizable. She has more in common with the likes of Mos Def and Missy Elliott and Lee “Scratch” Perry than any of the legions of opinionated indie kids who either love her or loathe her. Until now, I thought I knew on which side of that argument I stood. But Kala surprised me. It succeeds not only by pushing forward the boundary on what many people consider acceptable music, but also by virtue of being a well-crafted album full of timely, memorable songs. I think I might even dust off my old copy of Arular now.

-Posted by Todd