Paper Planes - Release and Live Performances

Release and Live Performances

The song was made available for digital download upon the release of Kala on August 8, 2007. On 11 February 2008, the song "Paper Planes", the third single from the album, and the Paper Planes – Homeland Security Remixes EP were released digitally in the UK, and in America the next day. The single was released via 7digital on February 11 and on iTunes on February 12. The Paper Planes – Homeland Security Remixes EP, featuring various mixes of "Paper Planes", was released physically as a CD single three weeks later. The 7digital EP includes Blaqstarr's remix of "Paper Planes", with rap contributions from tourmates Rye Rye and Afrikan Boy. This remix was previously uploaded to M.I.A.'s MySpace account. The "Paper Planes (featuring Bun B and Rich Boy – Diplo's Street Remix)", which had circulated on the internet beforehand appears on the EP; in addition, the EP contains remixes of the song by DFA Records and Scottie B, and a remix of opening Kala track "Bamboo Banga" by DJ Eli. On iTunes, the tracklist differs slightly, with the "Bamboo Banga" remix replaced with a remix of "Paper Planes" by Ad-Rock. A new physical single version of "Paper Planes" was released in the UK on 13 October 2008.

In July M.I.A. began the full KALA Tour with dates in the United States before going on to play a number of festivals in Europe and America during which songs from Kala were performed. "Paper Planes" is usually performed as her encore song. After dates in Asia, she returned to America for a series of shows in October and November, before ending the year with concerts in the UK. The tour continued during the first half of 2008 under the banner of the People Vs. Money Tour with further dates in North America, although the planned European leg of the tour was eventually cancelled. Wearing a platinum blond wig, custom-made colour and black liner outfit in front of a glow-in-the-dark art stage installation, the singer/rapper performed "Paper Planes" as her set finale to a packed and energetic Sahara tent crowd at the 2008 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, calling fans onstage mid performance, resulting in a mass stage invasion with gig attendees climbing girders to dance alongside her. This led to a standoff with security. Jenny Eliscu of Rolling Stone described it as "one of this weekend's most buzzed about performances" outdoing her history-making first performance at the festival three years prior. M.I.A responded to Eliscu in an interview that although the success of "Paper Planes" may have led to increased interest in her work contributing to the packed out tent, she did not think "any one song is my perfect moment" and of her 2005 performance at the festival she noted "I don't think I'd ever be able to do something like that again, because it was my moment." She performed her last date at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in June 2008 after "Paper Planes" had seen some chart success, revealing her intentions to retire from the music industry and work on other art projects, start a family, go back to college and make a film. During an interview with Entertainment Weekly in August 2008, she explained that she stopped touring after the show and "didn’t want to make music again, as she was quite happy to leave it all behind", but that her mother's increased belief in her coupled with the increased chart success of "Paper Planes" during her hiatus encouraged her to make another record.

M.I.A. performed "Paper Planes" live on American television for the first time on September 13, 2007 on the CBS talk show Late Show with David Letterman, three weeks after the release of the album. The American rapper Kanye West, who had wanted to collaborate with M.I.A. on his second album in 2005 emailed her during Christmas 2007, telling the singer he listened to the song repeatedly. His interest in the song culminated in the recording of the track "Swagga Like Us". M.I.A. broke her hiatus in October 2008 by performing several songs including "Swagga Like Us" with T.I. and "Paper Planes" with her new label signee Rye Rye and N.E.R.D. at the Diesel XXX party at Pier 3 in Brooklyn, United States where it was revealed that M.I.A. was pregnant with her first child. Following her performance of "Paper Planes" at the 2009 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, she dedicated the song to the photographer Shawn Mortensen who died the previous week. She performed "Paper Planes" and "Swagga Like Us" live at the 51st Grammy Awards ceremony with the musicians West, T.I., Jay-Z and Lil Wayne on her son's expected birth delivery date on February 8, 2009. She appeared on the red carpet wearing a blue and teal patterned, multi-tiered mini-dress designed by Manish Arora, that "both embraced and accentuated her full-bodied shape" and on stage wearing a polka-dot dress ensemble designed by Henry Holland. Reactions to her dresses at the ceremony were mixed. Verena von Pfetten of Yahoo described her performance dress as "show-stoppingly sheer" and included it on the list of "The Grammy's Most Memorable Outfits of All-Time." Tracey Lomrantz and Susan Cernek of Glamour included the dresses in their Best Dressed lists, praising M.I.A. for sticking to her signature style and "having fun" with her maternity wear fashion. Jocelyn Vena of MTV was less enthusiastic, saying of her Arora dress "there's no excuse for wearing a blue-and-green printed dress that made her look like a globe." M.I.A. later tweeted a picture of her 5-month old son wearing a small version of the Holland dress. Modelled after a 1950's performance in the main showroom of Las Vegas' Sands Hotel, the five artists performed to a standing ovation at the ceremony. Shaheem Reid of MTV commented of her performance "M.I.A. is a G! Let's never question her standing in hip-hop." Mike Bruno, writing in Entertainment Weekly, demanded that the singer be given a greater solo at the ceremony in future. Rosie Swash of The Guardian described her performance at the ceremony as "barnstorming", and noted the different ways, following the performance, that Oscar producers suggested M.I.A. could perform "O...Saya" at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony a few days later. Ben Thomson of The Guardian commented "by claiming the right to be on that stage, she's expanding the "us" of the sampled lyric to include all the hard-pressed quarriers of hip-hop's musical raw materials, and women, and people who aren't American – at a stroke. Not bad going for a few minutes' work on a night when you'd planned to have a baby anyway."