The Urgent Message of M.I.A.'s <i>Kala</i> at 10
The story of M.I.A.’s Kala is one of being locked out of somewhere and having a great time anyways. The London rapper Maya Arulpragasam had planned to record the follow-up to her acclaimed 2005 debut Arular in the United States largelywith the legendary producer Timbaland, but she said that immigration authorities prevented her entry. It’s hard to verify why that was the case—she’d been to America before, and she’d come again—but M.I.A. has maintained it was her lyrics: “‘Oh no, she said the word ‘P.L.O.’ in a song!’” she summarized to Rolling Stone. So she traveled the globe for collaborators and venues to work in.
The tale fits all too well with the sound and the message of the album, one of the best of the new millennium. The, which turns 10 on August 8, not only made for an addictively fun listen that spawned a sui generis smash (“Paper Planes”). It also embraced the much-hyped rise of globalization and digital communitarianism only to execute a clever political flip, tweaking the West not as culturally supreme but rather as tragically provincial. A decade later, her all-out razzing of the concept of borders has never been more relevant.
