M.I.A.'s Kala is one of the most compelling albums I've heard all year. In fact as I see it, there are only two other albums I've heard that are as unique and compelling, Panda Bear's Person Pitch and Mirrored by Battles.

Any thoughts of a "sophomore slump" can be squashed. Any thoughts of M.I.A. being a flash in the pan (Lilly who?) should be forgotten. Homegirl is the real deal. Kala may not be as fun as her debut Arular but it does seem to have more substance. Like Public Enemy and Sly before her M.I.A. makes the case that there is no reason protest music and party music can't be one and the same. Like OutKast M.I.A. takes the word "genre" and busts a cap in its @$$, she IS her own genre. In the world of M.I.A gunshots are just effective as sounds to build songs around as a bird squawk or didgeridoo. Aborigine adolescent rappers and Bollywood songs are just as much fair game as quoting the Modern Lovers or the Pixies.

In the year of Timbaland only M.I.A. can find a way to marginalize the prolific producer as their collaboration ("Come Around") is needlessly tacked on to the end of "Kala" -- thereby wasting what should be one of the most scintillating closing tracks ("Paper Planes") in recent history.

If you happen to find yourself trying to explain M.I.A. to someone who's never heard her, try this on for size. M.I.A. sounds like the successful result of a social experiment in which someone went to a third world country and simply explained hip-hop to a native (without ever providing a sonic reference point) and asked that person to reproduce what they were told.

I don't know if M.I.A. succeeds because she's audacious enough to know what she does will work, or if she's too naive to know that it shouldn't. After the acclaim of her first album and being courted by Missy and Timbaland she very easily could've taken that road to surefire commercial success. No if she's going to be a huge success it appears it will be solely on her own terms. As long as it sounds like this I say just keep following your instincts girl.