Galang

Galang was the first M.I.A. record the public heard. Showbiz Records pressed 500 copies on vinyl in 2003. It was the second song she wrote on the Roland MC-505, and she meant it for Justine Frischmann's band Elastica, as encouragement to keep making music. Frischmann, who co-wrote it, talked her into recording it herself. Steve Mackey and Ross Orton, working as Cavemen, reworked it in a professional studio, where she added a bass line and new vocals for a more analogue sound than the 505 allowed. The word galang comes from a Caribbean slang phrase for go along, in the sense of behave. She has said the lyric sets down the advice she had been given about how to survive in London.

Pete Tong played it in 2003 on his Essential Selection show on Radio 1. XL Recordings re-released it, and again in 2005 as Galang '05, with remixes by Dave Kelly and Serj Tankian. The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones heard in its chorus a sound that "could be the sound of a carnival, or a riot." Seattle Weekly's Michaelangelo Matos picked out the a cappella coda, with "clear skies beyond the council flats". Pitchfork ranked it the fourth best single of 2004. Ruben Fleischer directed the video, with M.I.A. as art director. Time Out placed it tenth on a 2011 list of the 100 best London songs.

Live and covers

She ended her 2005 Coachella set in the Gobi tent with it and drew an encore, the first tent encore at the festival. She also played it on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge in 2005. The jazz pianist Vijay Iyer recorded it with his trio on the album Historicity.