Arular

M.I.A.'s debut studio album came out on XL Recordings in the United States on 22 March 2005 without U.R.A.Q.T., because a sample was still unresolved. The UK edition a month later included the track, and Interscope issued that edition in the US on 17 May. It had first been due in September 2004. The album is named after her father.

She made the first versions of the songs on a Roland MC-505, owned by her friend Justine Frischmann, then finished them with other writer-producers, wanting to pull her collaborators out of their boxes. Richard X worked on Hombre, whose drum pattern came from the sounds of toys she bought in India, plus pens and mobile phones, and he also produced Amazon and 10 Dollar. Diplo brought baile funk into Bucky Done Gun. Steve Mackey and Ross Orton, as Cavemen, produced Sunshowers and Galang, and on Galang she added a bass line and new vocals for a more analogue sound than the 505 gave. Anthony Whiting produced Fire Fire and Bingo. She sang all the vocals herself.

It averages 88 on Metacritic from 33 reviews. Pitchfork's Scott Plagenhoef called it a celebration of contradictions that recasts the tag world music as the ultimate in communicative pop. Rolling Stone ranked it number 52 on its 2011 list of the best albums of the 2000s, describing tracks that are "some of the most raging bangers of the decade". The book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die describes it as "the most sparkling debut since Madonna's first album". Thom Yorke of Radiohead cited her way of making music on Arular as an influence. It peaked at 98 on the UK Albums Chart and 190 on the Billboard 200, and reached three on the Top Electronic Albums chart.