Pitchfork

Photo by Kathryn Yu

Baby mama and Hova's witness M.I.A. is very much back from her sabbatical and rearing to hit us with new music. Her Blaqstarr-boosted cover of Tom Waits classic/"The Wire" theme song "Way Down in the Hole" surfaced earlier this month, and now it appears she has some new tunage in Trainspotting/28 Days Later... director Danny Boyle's much-buzzed-about new film Slumdog Millionaire (co-directed by Loveleen Tandan).

The Playlist points us to a New York magazine interview with Bollywood composer/megastar A.R. Rahman, who did the score for Slumdog and discusses recording a track, apparently called "O... Saya", with Ms. Arulpragasam herself.

"We met before but never worked before," Rahman tells NY mag (some of Kala was recorded in Rahman's studio). "M.I.A., she's a real powerhouse. Somebody played me her CD and I thought, 'Who's this girl?' She came here and knew all my work, had followed my work for ages. I said 'Cut the crap,' this 'my idol' crap. You have to teach me. We started working in India, then we e-mailed the track back and forth. She did the vocals in England. I did the rest in India." A song you may have heard before called "Paper Planes" reportedly turns up in the film as well.

Slumdog Millionaire, which centers on an impoverished young man's appearance on India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", is in some theaters right now and may very well wind up a presence at next year's Oscars. There's no word just yet on a release for the soundtrack.