All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Stylus Magazine

In a voice that shifts from pout to growl in a beat’s time, M.I.A.'s verses and hooks are as mercurial in tone as the backing tracks.

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100

Los Angeles Times

The album hits hardest by embodying the process by which certain voices are bottled up and distorted within the global noise of what M.I.A. calls "Third World Democracy."

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100

The Onion (A.V. Club)

Kala is such a resolutely strange, sweltering album that it's thrilling to be alive in an era when such a thing can lay claim to the mantle of "pop."

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RapReviews.com

It is more expansive and daring--resulting in more highs and lows than "Arular."

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Urb

Her most anticipated follow-up is again the most cross cultural jam you'll hear this year. [Sep/Oct 2007, p.129]

BBC collective

M.I.A. and co-producers, including Switch, straddle more styles than you’d find in most music collections, let alone on the same disc.

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Spin

M.I.A.'s border-crossing dance pop is a revolutionary manifesto set to the victory-party vibe of the future. [Sep 2007, p.127]

Rolling Stone

Kala strikes deep. There's a resolute sarcasm, a weariness and defiant determination, a sense of pleasure carved out of work--articulated by the lyrics, embodied by the music.

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Drowned In Sound

With its mix of Tamil pop, Baltimore beats and, yes, funk carioca Kala succeeds best in pulling genres together to make something both unique and identifiable --a 'hip-hop' record that explores what it means to sing about "hip-hop things."

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PopMatters

M.I.A. has given us one of the albums of the year. Bravo.

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musicOMH.com

Here she is doing what she does best--weaving the sounds and statements of the people she's writing about into the song itself.

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All Music Guide

Kala nearly makes "Arular" seem tame in comparison, magnifying most of its predecessor's qualities as it remains bracingly adventurous.

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Prefix Magazine

The result is Kala a stark confrontation of set notions of authenticity and identity--and my new favorite record.

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Pitchfork

Kala is clattering, buzzy, and sonically audacious.

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cokemachineglow

Although there are a couple of failed tracks--like the tediously slow 'The Turn'--most of this stuff is groundbreaking.

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Billboard

Even more so than her arresting 2005 indie debut, "Arular," M.I.A. comes off as a globetrotting activist on sophomore effort Kala.

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Hot Press

Kala is an intoxicating junk-culture travelogue, a genre-humping mash-up of Bollywood rumbles, shrieking guitars and machine-gun rhymes.

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New Musical Express

MIA innovates club music, art music and pop music at every turn.

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Hartford Courant

Kala is pop music without the vapidity, and political music without the condescension.

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Mojo

Defiant cosmopolitanism doesn't come much more feisty, or compelling than this. [Sep 2007, p.104]

Dot Music

Three loud cheers for her scattershot creativity, please.

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The Wire

'Bomboo Banga' is pure power monotony, her deadpan one-note voice mixed with car engines, samples of Bombay pop, Booty Bass and tribal rhythms, is a perfect soundtrack to a stroll down London's Banglatown. [Sep 2007, p.57]

Lost At Sea

Kala is only received as a political record if you listen up properly. The music itself no longer asserts itself like a militia; it's too calm and more scattered.

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Tiny Mix Tapes

At first, you’re itching for her to tear into such a juicy beat. But after a couple of listens, you realize it’s a tactful deference that allows her to be in the mix without commandeering it. She could if she wanted to, but she’s passed that.

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Blender

The impact of M.I.A.'s music isn't in what she says, but how it arrives: in tracks so irritating they're irresistible. Anything but naive, M.I.A. brings a connoisseur's ear to her beats.

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Sputnikmusic

Kala is definitely a song-based album, but, that being said, the songs fit together perfectly, and even more surprisingly, they’re all good.

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Uncut

She twangs the boundaries of taste both lyrically ("Take me on a genocide tour/Take me on a trip to Darfur") and musically. But a knockout's a knockout, however messy the bout.

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Observer Music Monthly

There are the terrible lyrics and more than a few moments where her one-style-fits-all MCing grates, but there's also the politics that no one else would touch, an intelligence, colour and humour, and the added benefit of centrifugally heavy production. Skip a couple, and you're in for a treat.

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Q Magazine

Everything here is a fantastic hybrid, M.I.A. and her platoon of producers thieving fashionable street sounds from Baltimore hip hop to Brazil's baile funk. [Sep 2007, p.89]

The Guardian

Even at its weakest moments, Kala sounds unique--and, thrillingly, like an album that could only have been made in 2007, which is not something you can say about many albums made in 2007.

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Under The Radar

Kala not only doesn't disappoint, it renews faith in M.I.A. and confirms her commitment to the individualistic sound she has created. [Summer 2007, p.74]

Entertainment Weekly

Kala is propelled by genuinely stellar moments. [24 Aug 2007, p.133]

Slant Magazine

M.I.A., undoubtedly the truest "outsider" to emerge on the pop landscape in ages, has crafted an album that, in its best moments, positions her as an impassioned advocate for the disenfranchised.

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Dusted Magazine

Inconclusive. Kala plays as mixed media pastiche, a barely restrained amalgam of ideas that are hardly exhausted by beats or flow and double and triple as political references.

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Almost Cool

Like her debut, Kala is somewhat inconsistent, for slightly different reasons. While there isn't the distraction of short tracks and skits to break the flow, some of the songs essentially do the same thing by shooting high and missing the mark.

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cokemachineglow

Kala is the sound of a hugely creative, angry, head-strong young artist reaching well beyond her means, both musically and politically, and coming up short, though, to be fair, it still manages to contain a few of the best songs of the year.

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Vibe

The majority of Kala is limp and unfocused. [Sep 2007, p.133]

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 151 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Johnny Flow gave it a10:
This is a fantastic album and a true original, big upgrade over the impressive Arular. But I understand how M.I.A.'s music can divide people. It's definitely a love-it-or-hate-it sound. I will also concede that she is a weak M.C. and downright awful live performer. She is purely an album artist and an interesting person to interview. But damn, what a record... just don't expect to hear specific genre, expect to hear something totally different.

Jooby Dooby gave it a10:
Perfect album.

Milosz D. gave it a2:
I agree that this is overhyped. There *is* a big mix of styles, but that in itself doesn't really mean the album is great, even though some reviewers seem to have based it purely on this notion. It is like Vibe says unfocused, there's no poignancy and it ends up being something in between annoying and dull. 2 Points and that's even with some good will.

Paula K. gave it a10:
Crazy.Cool.Hot.Nice..

Dave h gave it a9:
Pretty spectacular and wildly unique! amazing album! best songs- bamboo banga, birdflu, boyz, jimmy, hussel, 20 dollar, xr2, paper planes and come around are all outstanding tracks!

Kumuthan x gave it a10:
MIA is excellent! talented. a genius. her music is like abstract art. only some of you will "get it".

Matt C. gave it a1:
Pure tripe.

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Kala

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