M.I.A.//Amazon

Chances are good that, by now, you’ve heard M.I.A. Paper Planes is an incredibly catchy breakout hit, which I loved at first, even if I’ve now heard it so many times that I have the urge to pull all my hair out with those opening sounds. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great song…but did every A-C list rapper just HAVE to throw up their fly-est rhymes over it? EVERY ONE?

Let’s rewind—before Kala showed up to make everyone love M.I.A. (and make all you want to do is go—bang bang bang bang ca ching and take your money!), I was getting wasted with friends in ASquared while listening to Arular, which is a stellar album in its own right. Weird, but stellar.

Let’s not discount this track, in which we meet our heroine, who has roots in Sri Lankan activism and, fun fact, lives in my neighborhood (really?).



Amazon.mp3

Hello.
This is M.I.A.
Am I gonna run into you
On the A Train?