M.I.A "PAPER PLANES" review

Part of the LA Weekly Music section's Best of 2007 list, December 2007

Paper Planes review in LA Weekly

Pitchfork interview of reference

Song review (although after reading her ridiculous Pitchfork interview, it ended up being more of a character review.)

M.I.A. is an awesome musician. Her politics, though, are a couple tacos short of a combination plate.
There are a couple more observations below that didn't make it to the print edition:

The grand façade of Sri Lankan–way-of-London hip-hop star M.I.A. is the postulation that she actually knows what she’s talking about. This year, she asserted in Pitchfork that she doesn’t really care about what she’s talking about (Liberia, terrorism, Diplo). Then the press media accuses her of not caring, which is when she gets mad and accuses the press media of thinking she doesn’t care because she’s a woman. Or brown-skinned. Or a brown-skinned woman. Then Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam contends that she understands writers diminishing her achievements out of sexist discrimination, but the comments only really upset her if the journalist is female. Furthermore, she expresses how terrible it is to posses XX chromosomes in America—“In America, that's such a norm, for women to be puppets”—but then advertises her marital availability because she wants to STAY. In. America: “I'm only here on a year visa, so if you could just advertise, I'm looking for a husband."
Whatever.
Her 2007 album Kala harbors one of the most satisfying and fun tracks of 2007. “Paper Planes” has shotgun blasts mixed with cash-register $ka-chings$ and a sample of the Clash’s “Straight to Hell,” all held together by her alluring vocals and airy danceable beats. It’s hilarious. I feel instantaneously happy and cool when I put this song on. Maybe that’s why it’s so disappointing to learn of her convoluted campaigning and nationalistic muckraking. Oh, well. She’s not the first pop star to crow about capitalism while flashing gold-plated teeth. You can check the music video for “Paper Planes” on Spike TV’s ifilm.com. It’s right after the 20-second Sidekick commercial.