[12][13] Her creative partnership with the relatively unknown Rusko grew from a sense of frustration at what she saw as her now more mainstream associates suggesting sub-standard tracks due to their busy schedules.

[10] Producer Rusko, who played guitar and piano on the album, described the pair getting "carried away" in the studio, appreciating the "mad distorted and hectic" sound they were able to create.

[23] The closing track, "Space", which was reportedly recorded using an iPhone app,[24] is a ballad which Mikael Wood, writing in Billboard, described as "dreamy" and "sound[ing] like a Sega Genesis practicing its pillow talk".

[27] "It Takes a Muscle" is a cover version of a track originally recorded in 1982 by Dutch group Spectral Display, and is performed in a reggae style.

[28][29] The opening track "The Message", featuring a male lead vocalist, parodies the words of the traditional song "Dem Bones" to link Google to "the government".

[30] Kitty Empire wrote in The Observer that these conspiratorial government connections to Google and the thoughts of Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova, the Russian teenager who bombed Moscow's tube system in revenge for the death of her husband, were inner-world issues pondered in "Lovalot" with "a mixture of nonsense rhyme, militant posturing and pop-cultural free-flow; her London glottal stop mischievously turns 'I love a lot' into 'I love Allah' ".

[27] Powers also commented on how "Born Free" mixed the boasting style often found in hip hop music with lines depicting the lives of those enduring poverty and persecution.

[31] "Illygirl", a track found only on the deluxe edition of the album, is written from the point of view of an abused but tough teenager, whom critic Robert Christgau said could be the "kid-sister-in-metaphor" of the swaggering persona adopted by M.I.A.

[32] Samples used on the album were taken from artists as diverse as the electronic duo Suicide and gospel choir the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers.

[24] According to Jim Farber of New York Daily News, Maya is an avant-pop album that takes influence from "the most maddeningly catchy bits of electro-clash, hip-hop, Bollywood, dub and dance music".

[1] Julianne Escobedo Shepherd of The Fader commented on the increasingly industrial feel of the tracks made available prior to the album's release,[35] a style which had not previously been incorporated into her music.

[36] On a similar note, Michael Saba of Paste believed the album was "a collection of sparse, industrial-influenced tracks that sound more like post-apocalyptic Nine Inch Nails than Arulpragasam’s trademark realpolitik rap".

[47] MTV's Kyle Anderson described the cover, which was previewed in June 2010, as "a typically busy, trippy, disorienting piece of art" and speculated that it might be "a statement about 21st century privacy".

's deliberate "shrinking away from a mainstream audience" by the use of difficult, unsearchable symbols was part of a growing new underground scene perhaps trying to create a "generation gap", where only "the youngest and the most enthusiastic" would seek out such band names by reading the right online sources.

[56] The following day her publicist confirmed that the track was entitled "Space Odyssey" and had been produced in collaboration with Rusko to protest a travel piece about Sri Lanka printed in The New York Times.

[58] The film, directed by Romain Gavras, depicts a military unit rounding up red-headed young men who are then shot or forced to run across a minefield.

[59] The film, which also features nudity and scenes of drug use, caused widespread controversy and was either removed or labelled with an age restriction on YouTube.

[71] The new album was publicised during Jay-Z's performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April, when a blimp flew across the venue announcing that M.I.A.

also promoted the album with an appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman", during which she performed "Born Free" with Martin Rev of Suicide playing keyboards, backed by a group of dancers styled to look like M.I.A.

[77][78] In November 2010 she appeared on the British television show Later... with Jools Holland, performing "Born Free" and "It Takes a Muscle", the latter with members of The Specials.

became involved in a dispute with Lynn Hirschberg of The New York Times, who interviewed her in March 2010 and whose resulting article portrayed the singer as pretentious and attention seeking.

posted Hirschberg's telephone number on her Twitter page and later uploaded her own audio recording of the interview, highlighting the discrepancies between what she said and what was reported.

[32][82] Benjamin Boles wrote in Now that, while Hirschberg's piece came across as a "vicious ... character assassination", M.I.A's subsequent actions were "childish" and made her "the laughing stock of the internet".

[83] The incident prompted Boots Riley of the band Street Sweeper Social Club to comment on how artists had access to media that allowed writers to be held accountable and that M.I.A.

[77] Charles Aaron, writing in Spin, gave the album four and a half out of five stars, his review deeming the song "Lovalot" her "riskiest gambit yet".

's "most aggressive, confrontational and passionate yet", praising her "voracious ear for alarms, sirens, explosions, turning every jolt into a breakbeat" and her consequent lyrics as "expansive".

[92] Los Angeles Times writer Ann Powers commended the album as "an attempt by an artist who's defined herself through opposition to engage with the system that she has entered, for better or worse, and to still remain recognizable to herself" characterising Maya's foregrounded ideas as "a struggle worthy of a revolutionary".

[27] In his consumer guide for MSN Music, critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A rating and complimented its "beats and the spunky, shape-shifting, stubbornly political, nouveau riche bundle of nerves who holds them together".

[41] Chris Richard of The Washington Post called it "a disorienting mix of industrial clatter and digital slush" and noted "there isn't much to sing along to".

[109][110] Maya debuted at number 21 on the UK Albums Chart on first-week sales of 7,138 copies,[111] 18 places higher than the peak position achieved by Kala, immediately making it M.I.A.