M.I.A. breaks out with Brit beats

Maya Arulpragasam (aka M.I.A.), the Sri Lankan-born Londoner who survived the guerilla warfare and social strife of her home country before moving abroad to pursue careers in music and art, has been recording her own beats and rhymes prodigiously for the past several of her 27 years. Her first two singles, "Galang" and "Sunshowers," infrequently haunted college radio in the fall of 2004, and a full-length LP was promised to be in the works. With several delayed release dates and one lengthy legal battle over a beat sample behind her, M.I.A. finally debuted Arular. \nLyrically, aside from the mostly indecipherable Brit slang in the call-outs and choruses, M.I.A. meshes vivid remembrances of her violent past with occasional sultry come-ons to male fans, only to turn the tables on a dime and veer off into one of many catchy sing-along choruses or insistent breakbeats. Her rhyme style invites comparisons to that of a female Dizzee Rascal, a claim which is somewhat founded, yet where Rascal possesses the impressive ability to discharge elaborate rhymes with the speed of the Micro-Machine Man, M.I.A. makes her presence felt with simple turns of phrase and lilting syllabic intonations.\nThe vast majority of the beats on Arular were pieced together by M.I.A. herself on various instruments of home-recording technology, and then sparingly professionally produced for album presentation. "Fire Fire" starts off inconspicuously enough before a gut-pounding beat kicks in and doesn't let up, "Pull Up the People" boasts a sound that could almost be called Kraftwerk-esque if the track weren't so energizing and the sparse. "Sunshowers" jumbles double-tracked political invective with a beat straight out of level 1 Virtual DJ. Despite Arulpragasam's unthreateningly sweet physical presence, this is an album that begs to be cranked up to 11.\nWith Arular, Arulpragasam has crafted a record suited just as well for dancehalls and trendy clubs as it is for an early morning walk to class with your iPod. The overt political messages embedded in the lyrics in no way distract from the auditory addictiveness of most of the tracks, and in blending the two aspects so seamlessly, M.I.A. has delivered one of the most consistent and engaging electro-dance-rap records that has yet emerged from the UK scene.