M.I.A.: How Many Votes Fix Mix EP
There's a reason you didn't hear about the six-song, 19-minute mini How Many Votes Fix Mix EP: It's the bonus disc with M.I.A.'s Kala, newly refurbished on the back of "Paper Planes" hitting the Top 5 last fall. The EP is also available on its own online (though in a truncated three-song version), and Kala fans won't be sorry to hear these extensions. "Planes" features guest verses by Rye Rye and Afrikan Boy, but the new songs are the real draw. "Shells" features a quick kick-drum and bass drone, under M.I.A. singing (in a voice sped up to just this side of chipmunk level) about how "freedom costs money." "Big Branch" hooks to a cranked, steely snare drum and piping horn samples, with a lyric bitching about unfaithful men and the women they cheat with. And the closer, "Sound Of Kuduro," which features the Portuguese dance group Buraka Som Sistema, may be the most irresistible dance track M.I.A. has ever put her name on—which is saying something.