Akala is a London-born UK rapper and educator, born in 1983. He records hip hop with rock influences and is known for combining sharp political commentary with literary and philosophical references.

Background

Akala is the stage name of Kingslee Daley. His work reflects a mixed family background: his mother is white Scottish and his father is black Jamaican. He grows up in London and is shaped by experiences of racism, school conflict, and violence, as well as by an early interest in history and philosophy that he develops largely on his own.

As a teenager, he plays football and is on the schoolboy books of both West Ham United and Wimbledon before dropping out of college. He also spends time around the Hackney Empire through his stepfather, who works there as a stage manager, and this gives him early exposure to theatre, including Sarafina! and Shakespeare. He is placed in a special-needs class at six, and later responds to a racist comment from a teacher by writing to the headmaster and governors.

Music

Akala's music draws on hip hop alongside a wider range of influences, including Public Enemy, Wu-Tang Clan and Rakim, but also Radiohead, Aphex Twin and Depeche Mode. His albums often address race, class, sexism, war, social conditioning and the politics of identity. He is associated with the idea of hip hop as “edutainment”, using the genre for both instruction and entertainment.

His debut album is It’s Not a Rumour, which wins a MOBO Award. He follows it with Freedom Lasso and then DoubleThink, a concept album shaped in part by dystopian literature, including George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, with an added influence from The Matrix. The album includes tracks such as “Welcome to Dystopia”, “Peace”, “Faceless People”, “Find No Enemy”, “Yours and My Children”, “XXL” and “Not That Serious”.

On DoubleThink, he works with the classical pianist Paul Gladstone Reid, MBE on “Peace”. The record also includes reflections on violence, including an incident from his childhood in which he sees his friend’s brother attacked with a meat cleaver, and observations drawn from time spent in Brazil.

Other work

Akala releases music on his own Illa State label. He also teaches and sets up the Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, which runs workshops in schools. His education work leads to consultancy for the organising committee of the 2012 London Olympics.

Style and themes

His writing is often direct and combative, but it also uses satire, humour and wordplay. He presents himself as an artist concerned with the social purpose of hip hop and with challenging stereotypes about both the genre and the “urban experience”. He identifies Saul Williams and Gil Scott Heron among his inspirations and heroes.