Kala is the second studio album by British hip hop artist M. I. A. It was released on 8 August 2007 by XL Recordings. The album received widespread critical acclaim and was ranked as one of the best albums of 2007 by many publications. Kala was the best-performing album on the US Billboard Electronic Albums chart of 2007, and was certified gold by the RIAA.
About Kala (album) in brief
Kala is the second studio album by British hip hop artist M. I. A. It was released on 8 August 2007 by XL Recordings. The album received widespread critical acclaim and was ranked as one of the best albums of 2007 by many publications. 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. The songs are about political themes related to the Third World, including illegal immigration, poverty and capitalism. The last of which received a Grammy Award for Record of the Year nomination at the 2009 Grammy Awards. It features guest vocals from Afrikan Boy, The Wilcannia Mob, and Timbaland, and further collaborations with Switch, Blaqstarr, Morganics and Diplo. M. i A. named the album after her mother and said her mother’s struggles in life are a major theme of the recording. She contends that Arular was a contrast to Kala, but that Kala is about my mum and about her struggle and how do you work with your children and give them the power of urumana? Kala incorporates prominent influences from South Asian music, featuring samples of Bollywood and Tamil cinema, and draws on various styles, from funk carioca to African folk. It is musically more aggressive and sample-heavy than M.I. A’s debut album, and features extensive use of music of the native South Asian dance genre, such as the urumee, gaana and bhutiya.
It spawned the singles \”Bird Flu\”, \”Boyz\”, \”Jimmy\” and \”Paper Planes\”, the last of whom received a record of the year nomination for the Grammy Awards in 2009. It has been included in several greatest albums lists, and has been nominated for several Grammys, including Best Rap Album and Best Hip-Hop Collaboration with a Duo or Group, and Best Rap Performance with a Collaborator. M, I. and Switch relied heavily on Logic Pro, a digital audio workstation produced by Apple, and were able to capture vocals and background sounds outside the traditional studio environment, using a microphone and a Macbook Pro. 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, reportedly due to her family’s connections with guerrillas in Sri Lanka. She instead opted to record the album at a variety of locations around the world, beginning by travelling to India following the last date of her Arular Tour in Japan in February 2006. She initially travelled to India to meet A. R. Rahman, but found it hard to communicate her ideas to him and the planned musical collaboration did not take place. She then used his studio, where 22 members of drumming group The Tapes were recorded for Kala. The album features a number of guest vocalists, including Afrikaan Boy and The Wil cannia mob.
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