Paper Planes

Paper Planes began with Diplo and Switch in London. Diplo came up with sampling the Clash's Straight to Hell and built the instrumental with Switch's help, which is why Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon are credited as co-writers. M.I.A. has said she recorded her vocal in one take without paying much attention to the singing. Street kids she met in Brixton sing the chorus, and she finished the track at her home in Bedford-Stuyvesant in mid-2007, adding the gunshots and cash register.

It was a sleeper hit. After the song appeared in the trailer for Pineapple Express and on the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, it peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 on 27 September 2008. It was nominated for the 2009 Grammy for Record of the Year. Rolling Stone wrote that it took off thanks to its inclusion in the Pineapple Express trailer, and ranked it number 46 on its 2021 list of the 500 greatest songs. Bernard Gourley directed the video in Bedford-Stuyvesant, with Afrikan Boy and the Beastie Boys' Mike D and Ad-Rock in the cast. The video proved popular on MTV, which cut the song's cannabis reference and gunshot sounds. T.I., Jay-Z, Kanye West and Lil Wayne built Swagga Like Us on its lyric about swagger on the corner.

Live

She first played it on US television on Late Show with David Letterman on 13 September 2007, and it was the usual encore on the Kala Tour. At Coachella on 26 April 2008 she called fans onto the stage, and a rush to the stage followed. On 8 February 2009 she performed a Paper Planes and Swagga Like Us medley at the Grammy Awards with Jay-Z, Kanye West, T.I. and Lil Wayne. The Guardian counted that night among the 50 key events in the history of world and folk music.