Despite being universally praised as a harbinger of pop's future, M.I.A. (as [Arulpragasam] is more economically known) is often dismissed as a vocalist. As "Kala," her newly minted second album, hits American retail outlets Tuesday, its reception is another case in point. Even in reviews that acknowledge "Kala" could be the release of the year, words such as "flat," "sulky" and "limited" describe M.I.A.'s rapping and singing.

"Boyz," the album's current single, starts like a taunt, with a hyperactive drumroll and M.I.A. sounding like a Muppet singing the "Menomena" song. The punch line of this call-out to "no money boys" is that they go from being "crazy" and "raw" to starting a war. Macho posturing plus poverty equals violence: There's a Third World reality that M.I.A.'s song renders anything but abstract.

"See me see me bubbling quietly," M.I.A. teases on "World Town." It's not too long before she's yelling, "Hands up! Guns out!" But while Switch's stark beat forges a link between those gunshot noises and African gumboot dancing, M.I.A.'s also yelling, "Ni ni ni ni ni" -- as if all this rebel posturing is a taunt, a carnival joke in which the logic of power has been reversed for as long as the beat holds out.