rap ballads and Asian folk and references to her musical influences such as Missy Elliott, Tamil film music, Lou Reed, the Pixies, Timbaland, Beastie Boys, and London Posse. She was a childhood fan of Boney M, composer A. R. Rahman and pop artists Michael Jackson and Madonna, also she has cited Björk as an inspiration and has been influenced by The Slits, Public Enemy, Malcolm McLaren and The Clash. Noting her early inspirations, she said "When I would go to bed, I'd listen to the radio and dream about dancing and Paula Abdul and Whitney Houston, and that's how I fell asleep. When my radio was burgled, I started listening to hip hop". She has revealed her ideal karaoke song would be "Germ-Free Adolescents" by X-Ray Spex. M.I.A. describes her music as dance music or club music for the "other", and has been described as an "anti-popstar" for refusing to conform to certain recording industry expectations of solo artists. M.I.A.'s early compositions relied heavily on the Roland MC-505, while later M.I.A. experimented further with her established sound and drew from a range of genres, creating layered textures of instruments, electronics and sounds outside the traditional studio environment. Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of M.I.A.'s American distribution label Interscope, compares M.I.A. to Reed and punk rock songwriter Patti Smith, and recalled, "She's gonna do what she's gonna do, I can't tell her shit." "The really left-of-center artists, you really wonder about them. Can the world catch up? Can the culture meet them in the middle? That's what the adventure is. It doesn't always happen, but it should and it could." Richard Russell, head of XL Recordings, states, "You've got to bend culture around to suit you, and I think M.I.A has done that" adding that M.I.A.'s composition and production skills were a major attraction for him. As a vocalist, M.I.A. is recognisable by her distinctive whooping, chanting voice, which has been described as having an "indelible, nursery-rhyme swing." She has adopted different singing styles on her songs, from aggressive raps, to semi-spoken and melodic vocals. She has said of the sometimes "unaffected" vocals and delivery of her lyrics, "It is what it is. Most people would just put it down to me being lazy. But at the same time, I don't want [that perfection]," saying some of the "raw and difficult" vocal styles she used reflected what was happening to her during