Kala

M.I.A.'s second studio album came out on XL Recordings in August 2007, with Interscope releasing it in the United States. It is named after her mother. She had meant to make most of it with Timbaland, but his involvement was limited to Come Around. She recorded in numerous countries, including India, Trinidad, Jamaica and Australia, and she and Switch relied heavily on Logic Pro, capturing vocals and background sounds outside the studio with a microphone and a MacBook Pro. At A. R. Rahman's studio in India she recorded 22 members of the drumming group the Tapes. For Bird Flu she described using about thirty drummers in a room, and both Bird Flu and Boyz use urumee drums, a drum from the Tamil gaana tradition.

Hussel began as an image in her head of refugees being smuggled in boats, and its intro uses recordings of fishermen chanting as they pull boats into the water. Afrikan Boy raps on it. Mango Pickle Down River is her remix of the Wilcannia Mob's Down River, which she put on the album because she felt it was rare to hear the Aboriginal voice on record. Jimmy is her version of an old Bollywood film song from Disco Dancer, and 20 Dollar draws on the Pixies' Where Is My Mind?. Bamboo Banga uses Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner and an Ilaiyaraaja song from a film. Paper Planes samples the Clash. Steve Loveridge designed the cover, and the packaging holds photographs taken in Liberia and Jamaica.

It averages 87 on Metacritic from 37 reviews. Pitchfork's Mark Pytlik called it "clattering, buzzy, and sonically audacious", and The Guardian's review concluded that even at its weakest the album "sounds unique". Rolling Stone's Jody Rosen later called it a landmark, "an agitprop dance record that restyled hip-hop as one big international block party". Rolling Stone and Blender both named it the best album of 2007, and Rolling Stone ranked it ninth among the best albums of the decade in 2009. It debuted at 18 on the Billboard 200 and 39 on the UK chart, topped the Top Electronic Albums chart, and was certified gold by the RIAA in March 2010. The label reissued it in the UK in October 2008 after the success of Paper Planes.