Kala (album) - Composition and Recording

Composition and Recording

M.I.A. (Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam) had released her debut album Arular in 2005, which achieved critical acclaim and sold 130,000 copies. Plans for a second album were first revealed when she spoke later that year of her intention to work with American producer Timbaland. At one point it was anticipated that he would produce the bulk of the album. However, she was unable to gain a long-term work visa to enter the U.S., reportedly due to her family's connections with guerrillas in Sri Lanka. This led to conflicts between the two artists' schedules and meant that Timbaland's involvement was restricted to a poorly received guest verse on the track "Come Around". M.I.A. instead opted to record the album at a variety of locations around the world, beginning by travelling to India following the last date of her Arular Tour in Japan in February 2006.

She initially travelled to India to meet A. R. Rahman, but found it hard to communicate her ideas to him and the planned musical collaboration did not take place. Rahman did, however, provide M.I.A. with a number of contacts and allow her to use his studio, where 22 members of drumming group The Tapes were recorded for Kala. Producer Switch, who had initially travelled to India purely to engineer the planned sessions, ultimately became involved in the composition of several tracks for the album. A visit to Angola to work with DJ Znobia was cancelled after Znobia was involved in a car accident, but M.I.A. was able to record in Trinidad, Liberia, Jamaica and Australia. She and Switch relied heavily on Logic Pro, a digital audio workstation produced by Apple, and were able to capture vocals and background sounds outside the traditional studio environment, using a microphone and a Macbook Pro. The album features guest vocals from Afrikan Boy, The Wilcannia Mob, and Timbaland, and further collaborations with Switch, Blaqstarr, Morganics and Diplo. She likened the process of recording the album to "making a big old marble cake with lots of different countries and influences. Then you slice it up and call each slice a song".