Track Listing

1. Banana Skit
2. Pull Up The People
3. Bucky Done Gun
4. Sunshowers
5. Fire Fire
6. Dash The Curry
7. Amazon
8. Bingo
9. Hombre
10. One For The Head Skit
11. £10
12. Uraqt
13. Galang

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15939 in Music
• Released on: 2005-04-18
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics

Amazon.co.uk Review
Arular is the sort of record that gets people talking. The debut full-length by Maya Arulpragasam, a refugee of Sri Lankan heritage who settled in London, attended Saint Martin's art school, and designed sleeves for Elastica, it's already set a few dancefloors on fire and stirred up no small amount of controversy in the process. In brief summary: its name is a reference to her father, an active member of the Sri Lankan guerrilla movement Tamil Tigers, a militancy which extends to the album within: "I got the bombs to make you blow", she sings on "Pull Out The People". Still, whatever you make of the ideology, there's no doubting the excellent tunes: self-penned on a basic groovebox and fleshed out with help from producers like Pulp's Steve Mackay and Richard X, the likes of "Bucky Done Gun" and "Galang" dice together all manner of global styles – hip-hop, Bhangra, Jamaican dancehall – and top it off with unmistakable, multi-cultural London sass. Best of all is "Hombre", a come-hither number that should get the boys trembling at the knees: "Excuse me little hombre/ Take my number, call me/ I can get squeaky so/ You can come and oil me" --Louis Pattison

CD Description
'Arular' is the debut album from Sri Lankan born Maya Arulpragasam aka MIA. The album's mix of clanking beats, analoguestabs, and quirky samples recalls Dizzee Rascal's groundbreaking debut 'Boy In Da Corner' and features guest productionfrom Diplo, Richard X, and Pulp's Steve Mackey.

Customer Reviews

oh. my. god.
maybe globalisation isn't so bad after all. here we have a sri-lankan born refugee living in britain, playing cut & paste with modern society, picking and choosing genres and countries of music and toying with the very essence of their sounds. it's plastic, colourful and beautiful in an indescribable way, when i heard that m.i.a. had been a visual artist before pursuing a career in music i wasn't in the least bit surprised; arular is an aural sketchbook, a rich, worldly melting-pot of modern music drawing from dancehall, hip-hop, bhangra and electro. being the postmodern fusion that it is, arular is full of contradictions, east meets west, a party record with a socio-political conscience, and strangest of all, this record is completely out of touch with what's happening in music today, yet at the same time this record is so undeniably 21st century. wether this is the future of music or merely an underground oddity i do not know, but i am certain that it will make your ears happy.

freshest record of 2005
OK, so taste is taste, but i'm amazed at all the negative reviews for one of the freshest, most original, and goddammit brilliant records of recent years. If you like the sound of a Missy Elliot without the #@!&$ ballads and a London emigre slant then this is for you. Arular is, quite frankly, the Nuts!

Amazing Future Ish
I Can't Believe the review below me, surely the vocals are absolutely and totally catchy and fresh and only add to the eclectic soundscapes diplo puts up.

I thought this was amazing and totally original.

Its up to you to make your own opinion though