The 28-year old Sri Lankan-born M.I.A. represents a new type of rootless, nation-less pop performer, one who can effortlessly graft images of violent revolution and Third World poverty to block-rocking party beats. The music on her debut album, Arular, is impossible to define, an irresistible mash-up of British garage, Jamaican toasting, American hip-hop and South Asian bhangra (to name just a few of its elements). Rolling Stone called M.I.A.’s music “weird, playful, unclassifiable, sexy, brilliantly addictive.”