'Kala' M.I.A. (2007)

“Paper Planes” had such unstoppable swagga, Jay-Z had to write “Swagga Like Us” atop a sample of M.I.A.’s original version. And her performance of that one iconic line—“no one on the corner has swagga like us”—was so crucial to Jay-Z’s performance at the Grammys, M.I.A. had to fly in to do her part on the telecast while nine months pregnant. The road to Hollywood was a strange one for this disc, beats for which were recorded in Liberia, Australia, and India. Does it seem too simplistic to describe M.I.A.’s second full-length album as one of the unambiguously joyful byproducts of globalized culture—the result of a world in which we can absorb British female rappers of Sri Lankan descent while also receiving old-school Afro-Pop compilations from Ghana and Nigeria on a monthly basis? Perhaps. Though occasionally, there’s no trick to evaluating this stuff. When what’s there is as fantastic as the worldly, populist grooves on Kala, no further analysis is necessary. You just celebrate, dance to it, and maybe think a little harder afterward about how to take care of more people in the world.