The new M.I.A album – called Kala – dropped today. M.I.A. took heavy rotation in my 2005 listening (click on her MySpace page here, and then start “Galang” for a sample), and I’ve very much looked forward to seeing whether she had more than one album in her.
The verdict, halfway through the new one?
Absolutely.
And, if you want to get an idea of the force of personality that is M.I.A., click over to this Pitchfork interview:
And that’s what this album is about. It’s filling in the bridge and the gap so that somebody in Liberia can articulate exactly what they want to say without having this middle-man person who has to be from the first world. And that’s what this album is about, it’s like “guess what: I came from the fucking mud hut and I got here and I’m here and I did it in 15 fucking years flat.” It’s not a three-generation experience like people in America.
Check it.