ACL Fest Friday Reviews

M.I.A.

This is new world music. London-born Sri Lankan Maya Arulpragasm mashed up dancehall beats with political spouts of guerrilla warfare on 2005 debut Arular. With follow-up Kala, she explodes out from the shadows of grime and hip-hop, incorporating drums recorded live in India, manipulating traditional instruments of Southeast Asia, and pushing her message of unity and reality even further. Unable to secure a working visa to record in U.S. studios, M.I.A. stepped onto the dust-covered streets of the Third World – Liberia, India, Trinidad – which puts Kala in the unique position of placing impoverished violence on the dance floor. "M.I.A. coming back with power, power!" she warns on opening electro speedway "Bamboo Banga," and from there she's off, meeting the street kids in the village alleyways with tribal drums on "Birdflu," counting "Boyz" in Africa, and busting out the strobe light for Bollywood cover (and true singing debut) "Jimmy." Treats come in turns with Afrikan Boy (the dub-flavored "Hussel") and the Pixies-New Order reinvention "20 Dollar," but where M.I.A. positively proves herself as not just a modern female artist but a world voice is in old-school creeper "World Town" – "Hands up, guns out, represent the world town" – and gun-blasting "Paper Planes" – "We pack and deliver like UPS trucks. Already goin' ta hell just pumpin' my gas." Of course it doesn't hurt to have Timbaland produce addictive summer jam "Come Around." When the air raids have silenced and the shrapnel has been swept away, what's left is the resounding effect of this sickly world we live in, where capitalism meets genocide and no one reads anymore. (5:30pm, Dell stage)