The first time I heard M.I.A was around the time of the release of her first album, Arular, on an end of year compilation put out by a probably-defunct-by-now music monthly. The song was 'Galang', and it seemed to my unknowing, mocking ears, to be some kind of elaborate joke. Reading on, it seemed the vast majority of critics were in on the joke, praising this farce - that managed to be clattering, atonal and boring all at once - as the work of a brave new voice from and for the developing world. The lyrics were at worst outright non-English, but generally vague, slurred exhortations to resistance. It was just hilarious.
Nevertheless, over the next few years, the refrain of that one song, the word "Galang" - which remains for me, meaningless - stuck with me. I'd find myself singing it, rolling it around my mouth in her weird, contemptuous way, knocking the syllables into each other, and into other words: "lazy days" "purple haze". Something about its oddity jammed it in my brain, along with this and this.
Without a doubt, praise for M.I.A. at this time was distorted through a number of filters. As a political refugee, her mere presence in the public realm was utterly unique. Animus towards asylum seekers has to a certain extent subsided, but at the time, with riots in detention centres, and accusations of swan eating, the Tories were capable of running a campaign based on an absolute cap on immigration, controvening international law regarding refugees (the young imbecile on work experience who wrote the Conservative Party's woefully misguided 2005 general election manifesto, David Cameron, was later to die of massive head trauma following a similarly misguided attempt to fly). Added to this, the fact that her father was a leading member of the Tamil Tigers (the group which it is claimed pioneered the suicide bombing) and that she was willing to make wonderfully cavalier references to terrorism, left her with the interesting USP of being, to paraphrase James Brown, "the Funky Terrorist".
Listening to Arular, the first thing you notice, after the immediacy of the beat, and the heartbreaking poverty of the farting Casio keyboard lines, is the constant references to terrorism. In 'Pull Up The People', she refers to herself as "a fighter" - indeed - "a nice, nice fighter", and "a soldier in a war", oddly presaging 7/7 bomber's Mohammed Sidique Khan remark in his 'martyrdom video' that "we are at war, and I am a soldier". 'Sunshowers' wonderfully overplays her hand, striking a comic, and utterly historically inaccurate note with the exuburantly delivered "like PLO I don't surrender!", and then a genuinely chilling note with "it's a bomb yo, so run yo, put away your stupid gun yo". These lyrics go part way to dealing with the question, blurted from Americans following 9/11 - "why do they hate us?". Well, actually, they don't really answer, but they present the opposite position - incomprehension, turned on its head. They imagine what the voiceless are saying, they list the places they live ("from Congo, to Colombo").
Going back to 'Galang' after years of treating it like a childhood crush - throwing rocks at it while wishing I could get to know it better - I found it was better than I remembered. Then, at around halfway, it stopped. For a while. Something made me leave it on. The song unfolded from the taut knot it had been into a boxer in the 12th round, and started assailing me with the least ironic political statements so far, all about 'followers', 'leaders', and, most wonderfully "Bush getting ready for takeover". She was proved very wrong about the Bush administration, but the promise offered by the last few minutes of 'Galang' and the glimmer of melody in 'Sunshowers' was proved wonderfully right with Kala.
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