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Journalism of Courage
Mya Arulpragasam8217;s voice, always at the centre of the 30-year-old8217;s continent-hopping, avant-garde, beat-happy songs, is not always easy to take or, for some, to take seriously.
Despite being universally praised as a harbinger of pop8217;s future, M.I.A. as Arulpragasam, the London-born, frequently displaced daughter of Sri Lanka, is more economically known often is dismissed as a vocalist. Even in reviews that acknowledge Kala 8212; her second album that hit retail outlets last week 8212; words such as 8220;flat8217;8217;, 8220;sulky8217;8217; and 8220;limited8217;8217; describe M.I.A.8217;s rapping and singing.
Kala draws on the widest possible array of sounds and nightclub trends. There are Bollywood hooks and Tamil Nadu village drums; the spaciousness of dub and the relentlessness of Baltimore thump beats.
So maybe what comes out of M.I.A.8217;s mouth isn8217;t the key to her music. Yet to dismiss her voice is to miss the whole point of Kala. The album hits hardest by embodying the process by which certain voices are bottled up and distorted within the global noise of what M.I.A. calls 8220;Third World Democracy8217;8217;. Although she has dared to represent the 8216;Third World8217;, some people feel that her year at a fancy London art school disqualifies her from that position, despite the impoverishment and exile she endured as a youth because of her father8217;s involvement with Sri Lanka8217;s militant Tamil Tigers.
So Kala is powerful if only because M.I.A. knows firsthand how a marginalised voice sounds.
-Ann Powers LAT-WP
