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Music: Hip-Hop M.I.A.

  • Mia_event_full

After the rainbow-colored, electro-bailé blast of Arular, M.I.A. could have easily taken her worldly flow to the bank, throwing her hat into Missy Elliott's freaky ring and taking hip-hop's arty mainstream by storm. Instead, she released Kala, which, while far from inaccessible, casts the UK MC's school-yard chants in a much rawer light. Piles of clanging percussion, broken drum machines, and child song gild M.I.A.'s loosest rhythms yet. "Paper Planes," a late album highlight, features a loping beat, guitar feedback lilting in the background, and a chorus cheekily lifted from Wreckx-N-Effect's "Rump Shaker," but with the "zoom-a"s and "boom boom"s replaced by gunshots and a cash register's "ka-ching!"

– Todd Goldstein