I think it would be hard to come away from this book unaffected by the power of the glimpse it gives into a life of the ‘racial other’ in Britain today. This is not a detached look at the role played by race in British society, rather this is lived experience told in clean, clear sentences with the power of the experience itself leaving the reader reeling. What I liked most about this book was the highly personal way everything is discussed. Perhaps the benefit of the injuries of race, taking a pretty negative view of the world, is that they are rarely hidden – they are constantly all too obvious and learnt far too young. This was excellent and similar to a lot of other books I’ve been reading lately about the hidden injuries of class. I’m not the audience for his music, I accept that.Īnyway, I’m definitely the audience for his book. One of the songs I listened to I literally couldn’t understand what was being said at all. I can’t help it, I find rap just too repetitive and it all sounds too angry to me.

Today, after writing most of this, I thought I had better listen to some of his music. I got most of the way through before it even occurred to me he might be somebody. He has also spoken at the Oxford Union.[ He has also been involved in campaigns to 'decolonise' the curriculum including giving a talk at the University of Leicester.įirst things first, I didn’t know anything about this guy before the book was recommended to me by Mimi. The book is part memoir, part polemic, on the subject of race in modern Britain.Īkala has given guest lectures at East 15 Acting School, University of Essex, Manchester Metropolitan University, Sydney University, Sheffield Hallam University, Cardiff University, and the International Slavery Museum, as well as a workshop on songwriting at the School of Oriental and African Studies. In May 2018, Akala published Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire. He was awarded an honourary doctorate by the University of Brighton in 2018. In 2006, he was voted the Best Hip Hop Act at the MOBO Awards. Originally from Kentish Town, London he is the younger brother of rapper/vocalist Ms. Kingslee James McLean Daley, better known by the stage name Akala, is an English rapper, author, poet, and political activist.

Akala empire