Electric Picnic:Kala, the second album by firebrand musician MIA, is one of the most exhilarating of the season, and much more subtle than her debut. Jim Carrollasks her about the change
She's done it again. If you thought Maya Arulpgragasam's debut album Arular was the first and last word in ultra-modern pop, strap yourself in for Kala. The most exhilarating, exciting and downright thrilling album of the season, it shows that few can match MIA - her stage name stands for Missing in Action - for producing music with panache and passion.
QDid you have a very defined plan of what you intended to do when you started recording Kala?
AWell, I had a pile of ideas. I wanted to make an album that sounded organic, fresh and warm. At the time, the predominant sounds were big, bass-y dance beats, we were re-entering the era of Daft Punk, with that kind of processed sound. I wanted to do something different, because that's me. If everyone is moving one way, I want to drag them another way. I was going to clubs a lot and I really wanted to leave behind that digital sound and try something new.
QYour tone has changed too, hasn't it?
AThe first time around, people applied so much importance to my lyrics, and that was cool, that was what I intended to happen. But the tone of Arular was exactly the tone of 2003 and 2004. If you switched on the news then, you got fingers wagged at you and told what to do and told that the plan was this, so I addressed my delivery in the same way and told people things back. I learned that from consuming media and the environment around me.
QWhile Kala is certainly a political album, the issues are dealt with in a much more subtle way.
AYeah, I wanted to move away from being so strident and so overtly political. Let the people who have PhDs in politics and economics work that out. Arular was my masculine album and Kala is my feminine album. I suppose it's a coincidence that I named the last one after my dad and this one after my mum, which I thought was fair.
But the album does reflect my life and I do have a political background. I ended up in England, after all, because of political reasons. Why would I deny that? Yes, this album is not as political as Arular, but that's because I decided that for me to be able to make music and to be who I am is political enough.
QWhat's noteworthy about the album is the global span - you recorded in India, Trinidad, Africa, Australia, the US and Britain. Was that a deliberate idea?
AI think it was more accidental. A lot of the time, no one knew where I was. After my last show in Japan in February 2006, I went to India. My manager got a new job and so I was alone. It really felt like a new beginning and it was amazing. I was on my own and answerable to no one about the reactions I was having to what I was experiencing.
QThe record label must have loved that?
AI really don't think a lot of people were interested in what was going on, to be honest. Some people were worried that I was making the wrong decisions, others were waiting until I turned back up and played them stuff.
By then, I was seven or eight songs into the album and there was no turning back. The record label could say "where's the single, wheres the radio hit?", but I wasn't interested. I said to them: "why don't you go and write me a super-hit and I'll just lip-synch along to it?" But no one came up with the super-hit so I got to do what I wanted to do.
QOne of the people you credit on the album is Bollywood maestro AR Rahman. What are you thoughts now on that hook-up?
AAR Rahman is so big, man, he's h-u-g-e. I mean, the Bollywood film-makers don't even start writing the scripts until he has approved the songs and the music and put his name to the movie. That's an incredible amount of power.
It's a totally different musical existence to what I've ever known. I've a different set-up. It's made me realise that it is more important for me to chase the chickens and sample the chickens and figure out how to market the chickens than to stay in five-star hotels and collaborate with huge stars.
QYou did end up working with other Indian musicians as a result of your trip there.
AYeah, I met this other kid who took me into the younger Indian scene, kids who were up for new music. I gave them some of the B-more club stuff, you know. I was in Chennai and met loads of musicians and it was there that I built songs like Bird Flu.
QDo you feel that you've suffered by talking at such lengths about your past and your politics? You could probably attribute your US visa problems to that, surely.
ATo be honest, I had so many issues with my visa and stuff that the album just became more worldly. So that turned out to be a good thing. I feel like I've been through so much bulls**t that even if I told you 20 per cent of it, I still feel it's too much to digest. Most people figure it can't be true and don't get it and just move on. The most important thing for me now is to keep being an artist and keep my intregrity.
Kala is out now. MIA plays the Electric Picnic's Electric Arena on Saturday at 5pm
