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Coming from the same urban wilderness that produced The Streets and Dizzee Rascal -- and putting those two to shame with her ballsy, upfront, unconstrained lyrics and delivery -- is Maya Arulpragasam. Known in artistic circles as M.I.A., her debut album, Arular, is fearless and aggressive. She knocks listeners unconscious with her snarling, confrontational approach. Her vocal style is part Jamaican dancehall toaster, part dirty American rapper, part monastic Tibetan chanter, and part British jungle emcee.
M.I.A. guises her serious political messages in what sounds like borderline nonsense. She spits rough and ready over punk-y electro rhythms. On "M.I.A." she observes, "You can watch TV and watch the media/President Bush doing takeover... All my youth the young offender." On "Amazon" she reveals, "I was missing in action/On the side of a carton... Cutting up the coupon/Saving for a telephone/Can I call home/Please can I go home."
Sounding rough and unfinished, as if it never made it out of her bedroom before it was pressed up, it's Arular's raw qualities that makes it a bold statement. The many colors M.I.A. paints with bring to mind tin toys in crowded wholesale shops and Third World markets: noisy, man-made, harsh, discounted. And difficult to ignore.
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