In praising M.I.A.’s album Kala earlier this year, I compared it to a sore tooth that you can’t help probing with your tongue. It’s loud, wild and unnerving but I find myself drawn to it again and again.

That’s not the sort of quote that ends up in a magazine ad, I know. But then, the sort of people who are into M.I.A. probably don’t care what a 35 year-old white guy has to say about the album anyway.

Her music is ‘world music’ in the truest sense… it is of and about people and cultures from all over the globe. M.I.A. (her real name is Mathangi Arulpragasam, so you can see why the moniker is necessary) split her childhood between London, Sri Lanka and India and that natural eclecticism shines through her every note.

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