The 25 Best Albums of 2007

1) M.I.A.
Kala Interscope
 After U.S. immigration turned her away, Maya Arulpragasam searched the globe for crazy sounds, rapped about being branded a terrorist and made 2007’s best album. Here, she tells Blender about her chaotic—and triumphant—year

I named the album Kala, after my mum. It was meant to be about her hardships as an immigrant. But I was having my own immigration problems. I was born in Sri Lanka, then became a British citizen, but these days I mostly live in Brooklyn—and in early 2006, I was supposed to be in the States to work with Timbaland on my second album. But the authorities wouldn’t let me back into the U.S. I’d wake up every morning, get all dressed up and go to the American Embassy in London to plead my case. They kept telling me, “You have insufficient paperwork.” But I had four different lawyers on the case—I knew it was bullshit!

Finally, after months of getting the runaround, they told me, “You match the profile of a terrorist.” Suddenly, I was this citizen of the Other World who was not good enough to enter the Unites States—someone threatening and disgusting who might blow up the Super Bowl because I used the word PLO in a song! So Kala became about being an outsider.

When I couldn’t get into the U.S., I decided to travel. I spent time in Madras, India. In Liberia. In Trinidad and Jamaica. It was during these travels that I recorded most of Kala.

“BirdFlu” was the first song I wrote. I’d gone to India in search of a sound: this South Indian drum called the urmi, which is used in temple rituals. They strike the drum and drag a stick across the surface, and it has a fantastic, bassy sound. I used the urmi on “BirdFlu,” along with some other Indian drums, and created this massive beat—the total opposite of the snap-beat sound that was popular in the U.S. at the time. People kept telling me, “That record is going to clear the dance floor!”

Meanwhile, I broke up with my boyfriend, [producer] Diplo. It was a bit of a nasty split. Diplo is American, and I really wish he’d spoken up for me during my whole immigration saga. I was in so much trouble, but he never stuck his neck out to support me. Just a word or two in the press could have helped. He talks about helping black kids in the ghetto, about saving poor kids in the Brazilian favela, and yet he couldn’t spare a word to help me, a refugee from Sri Lanka, part of a race that’s dying out! The opening lines to “BirdFlu” describe exactly how I felt: “Big on the underground/What’s the point of knocking me down?”

“Boyz” was just as personal, but more lighthearted. It started out as a joke. The press had been running these stories about me: “Rapper banned in the U.S.” I’d recorded the drums in India, and I started singing over the beat: nyah-nyah, nyah-nyah, nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah—basically sticking my tongue out at the immigration authorities. For a while I thought the song wouldn’t have any real lyrics, and I’d just take it back to the immigration office and play “Nyah-Nyah” for them!

“Paper Planes” plays on anti-immigrant hysteria. The chorus goes: “All I wanna do is (bang bang bang)/And a (ka-ching)/And take your money.” When I was in Baltimore, I heard these 4-year-olds who’d recorded a song that went, “Get money, yeah, get money!” And in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, where I live, I’m surrounded by African immigrants who’ve kind of built on top of that philosophy. Wherever immigrants go, they always provoke the same fear: They’re coming to take our jobs! I find it really interesting that “get money” is the most menacing thing that can be said by the Other. So on “Paper Planes,” I was like, Yeah, I’ll take your money—don’t you hate me now?

I’ve had all this success, but a lot of Sri Lankans view me as disappointment: Why aren’t you living in a Beverly Hills mansion with a Bentley and an MTV show? But I feel really good about my fans—they’re a community of clever and compassionate people. And I know I can walk into a room and inspire Timbaland. And that’s more important. My hits aren’t big, but my ideas are.