Kala (album)
Kala is the second studio album by British hip hop artist M.I.A. It was released on 8 August 2007 by XL Recordings. M.I.A. named the album after her mother and said her mother's struggles in life are a major theme of the recording. It was mainly written and produced by M.I.A. and Switch, and features contributions from Timbaland, Diplo, Afrikan Boy and The Wilcannia Mob.
This article is about the 2007 M.I.A. album. For the 2015 album, see Trevor Hall.
M.I.A. initially planned to work with American producer Timbaland for the bulk of the album, but was unable to gain a long-term work visa to enter the US. She hence recorded the album at numerous locations around the world, including India, Angola, Trinidad, Liberia, Jamaica and Australia. M.I.A. and Switch relied heavily on the digital audio workstation Logic Pro and recorded additional vocals and background sounds outside the traditional studio environment. Kala incorporates prominent influences from South Asian music, featuring samples of Bollywood and Tamil cinema. The album draws on various styles, from funk carioca to African folk. The songs are about political themes related to the Third World, including illegal immigration, poverty and capitalism.
Kala was the best-performing album on the US Billboard Electronic Albums chart of 2007, and was certified gold by the RIAA for shipping 500,000 copies in the US. It was certified platinum in Canada and silver in the UK. It spawned the singles "Bird Flu", "Boyz", "Jimmy" and "Paper Planes", the last of which received a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year at the 2009 Grammy Awards. The album received widespread critical acclaim and was ranked as one of the best albums of 2007 by many publications. Since its initial release, it has been included in several greatest albums lists. Renowned music critic Robert Christgau remarked that the album is his favourite of the 21st century.
Release and artwork[edit]
In April 2007 Rolling Stone reported that Kala would be released on 26 June of that year.[28] After being delayed for unknown reasons, the album was eventually released by XL Recordings on 8 August 2007 in Japan and on 20 August in the UK, and by Interscope Records on 21 August in the United States.[29] The Japanese edition featured three extra tracks not included on the versions released in other countries, with "Far Far" shortly being re-released on the How Many Votes Fix Mix EP.[30] Following the unexpected commercial success of "Paper Planes", Kala was re-issued in the United Kingdom in October 2008.[31] A 4 November 2008 US re-release was announced,[32] but as of late 2009 the album had not been re-issued in the United States.
The album's packaging includes photographs taken by M.I.A. and others in Liberia and Jamaica.[33] The cover artwork to Kala, designed by Steve Loveridge, features neon fractal patterns and repeated slogans, including "Fight On! Fight On! Fight On!", which surrounds her image on the front cover.[34] The cover was considered garish, prompting The Village Voice to comment "Maybe one day [she'll] make an album cover that it doesn't hurt to look at".[23] Additional graphics for the album were provided by English fashion designer Carri Mundane (also known as Cassette Playa) and Steve Loveridge.[33] The album's artwork was inspired by African art, "from dictator fashion to old stickers on the back of cars," which M.I.A hoped, like her artwork extended "Okley Run" clothing range, would capture "a 3-D sense, the shapes, the prints, the sound, film, technology, politics, economics" of a certain time.[35]
Commercial performance[edit]
Kala debuted and peaked at number 18 on the US Billboard 200, selling 29,000 copies in its first week.[76] It also topped the Top Electronic Albums chart,[77] and was ranked first on the Billboard Year-End Top Electronic Albums of 2007.[78] The album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on 5 March 2010,[79] and by September 2013, it had sold 559,000 copies in the United States.[80]
The album debuted and peaked at number 39 on the UK Albums Chart.[81] The album was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 30 January 2009, denoting sales in excess of 60,000 copies within the United Kingdom.[82] In Canada, Kala was certified gold by Music Canada on 27 August 2018.[83] The album also reached the top 40 in a number of other countries, including Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Norway and Sweden.[84][85][86]
Legacy[edit]
Kala appears on professional rankings of the greatest albums. In 2009, NME placed the album at number seventy-two in its list of the 100 greatest records of the decade,[60] and Rolling Stone ranked it as the ninth best album of the same period.[87] Christgau named it the decade's best album in his ballot for the magazine.[88] In 2012, Rolling Stone ranked it at number 393 in a revised edition of their Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time issue.[89] In 2013, NME ranked it number 184 in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[90] In 2015, the album was ranked number 42 by Spin in its list of "The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985-2014)".[91] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[92] In 2019, the album was ranked 75th on The Guardian's 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century list.[93] When asked in March 2020 whether Kala remains his favourite album of the 21st century, Christgau responded, "Yup. No contest."[94]
Writing for Dazed Digital, Grant Rinder praised the album for transforming M.I.A. from a "cult hero" to an "international star". Rinder commented that the album was a "tremendous" step forward towards shedding light on the realities of Third World countries that the Western world may not have thoroughly understood. Reflecting on diversity and representation issues in society, as well as politics surrounding President Donald Trump, Rinder said that Kala "feels particularly ahead of its time", and concluded that "M.I.A. was truly a pioneer for a global humanitarian perspective that no artist has been able to deliver quite as well since."[95] Frank Guan of Vulture said that M.I.A. "sounded like the future" and that "her immediate influence was remarkable", as the album "seems to herald certain trends current in contemporary hip-hop". Guan further gave appraisal to M.I.A. for being the "precursor" for "fashion-rap" acts, including Travis Scott, Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, and ASAP Rocky.[96]
In a 2013 Rolling Stone article titled "How M.I.A. made Kala", Jody Rosen regarded the album as "a landmark, agitprop dance record that restyled hip-hop as one big international block party, mixing up beatbox riddims, playground rhymes, left-field samples and gunshots. It was also, against all odds, a hit, which spawned a huge single and transformed M.I.A. from a cult heroine to an A-lister."[97] In 2017, following the 10th anniversary of its release, Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic also felt that Kala "feels newly relevant amid global political currents trending toward isolationism"[98] Reflecting on the lack of mainstream music tackling global issues, Simran Hans of Noisey wrote that Kala "felt, and still feels, like both a party, and a fight." and that it's "hard to imagine a dance record as combative being released now".[18] Gabriela Tully Claymore of Stereogum wrote that the album "promotes a global conscience not easily heard in a lot of popular music at the time [and] it was a dance album that confronted the hegemony of a market largely dominated by quote-unquote Western forms...M.I.A. had her finger on a pulse that spanned nations, and she figured out a way to harness disparate influences into a singular style that could thrive in various markets."[99]