I was nervous about this one, because I'd been reading about how intelligent and politically aware Akala is. Therefore I decided 'If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?' questions were best left to one side, not wanting him to think I was a complete berk. Although I did still manage to bring in 'What did you have for breakfast?' - now there's a question that demands respect for the interviewer. Oh dear.
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
AKALA
If you don’t know much about Akala, here are three facts for you:
1. The last gig he went to was Prince at the 02 Arena. Verdict? “It was absolutely fantastic.”
2. He has his mobile, wallet and house keys in his pockets. “Nothing interesting.”
3. For breakfast he ate beans on toast with plantain, avocado and yam. “I’m quite a bit of a health freak, you know. I tend to cook myself a big breakfast.”
There you go. Akala doesn’t mind interviews, although occasionally we do get closed answers. Far worse than talking is the photoshoots, he says. “I don’t mind people taking photos of me performing or when I’m doing something, but posing for pictures, I can’t stand it. I just think it’s so pretentious. I think that all press shots should be of artists doing what artists do, and that’s perform. Unfortunately, it’s part of the gig.”
Akala, aka Kingslee Daley, is a well-known name in the London hip hop scene. He’s the MOBO-award winning brother of Ms Dynamite, though is firmly making his own way in life without needing to climb on her bandwagon. He’s also something of a businessman, and is regularly praised for his intelligent and insightful lyrics.
Starting out playing in defence for Wimbledon and West Ham’s youth teams, his playing career was curtailed by injury but Akala always had music on the brain. “I’ve been performing since I was a kid. I used to do shows for my mum and then the first time I ever performed in public I was six. I did a dance called the tailfeather onstage at the Hackney Empire. My first professional gig, I was probably about 18,19.”
Since then, his influence has spread as far as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, where the British Council invited him to perform last year. “That was the best experience of my professional career, without a shadow of a doubt,” Akala says. You wouldn’t think there would be much of a hip hop scene there would you? “Yeah but it’s surprising, there really is. It’s got a massive following out there. The first show was 4,000 and the second was 3,000.”
A lot of casual listeners of urban first picked up on Akala when he won a MOBO in 2006 for Best Hip Hop. He was up against Busta Rhymes, Sway and Kanye West, and many thought the win completely out of the blue. Akala doesn’t quite agree with that.
“It was mad to be recognised because the thing is obviously I haven’t sold anywhere near as many records as anyone else that I was nominated against. I think awards shouldn’t be based on your public visibility and your marketing money. You shouldn’t get awards ‘cause you’ve got more money to spend to make yourself visible. My album was across the board really, really well received from your NME all the way through to your broadsheets, to internet reviews etc. And I think on that basis, if critical acclaim accounts for anything any more, then I think it was more than justified.” He’s only heard ‘bits and pieces’ of Kanye West’s winning album this year, but likes all he’s heard.
His new album ‘Freedom Lasso’ has quite a juxtaposition in the title. “It’s about the illusion of freedom that we have, in that a lot of the things we perceive to be freedoms are used to keep us from being free. I hate to get all deep and technical but yeah it’s just something for people to think about.
“I feel that in the world we believe that we live in a free society, especially being here in the Western world, but we don’t really. If our government want to take our tax money and then go and wreak havoc in some poor country somewhere in the world and we don’t agree with that, there’s not really anything we can do about it, if we stop paying taxes we go to jail. I don’t really see that as freedom.
"I think we do have an illusion of freedom as the world is largely controlled, I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it is controlled by the powers that be and I think that it is important for the people to have the power and to make the decisions for a particular country. It’s us who’s going to cop the flak when we travel around the world, and people have a conception of us already because we’re English, and think well you lot are the oppressors, when the vast majority of us disagree with a lot of the action.”
Protests and petitions, do you think they don’t help terribly much? “Well evidently they don’t, ‘cause the government still went to Iraq, and two million people turned up to oppose them. America is louder and more in public, and ‘cause their president is so dumb it makes them as a country more fallible and more easy to point the finger. But I don’t think people perceive Britain that different, I don’t think that the hatred that comes to Britain from other countries is any less than it is for America.”
Do you think your music has evolved much musically since ‘It’s Not A Rumour’? “Yeah definitely, that’s exactly what it was designed to do, to take the experimentation with guitar, to take the experimentation with electro, to take all of the ideas of philosophy that were on ‘It’s Not A Rumour’ and raise to the next level, both lyrically and musically, and I think we accomplished that.”
The album also features samples of The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Akala is a fan of “everybody who loves music and is passionate about their music and makes great music because they love it so much, and I definitely think that those bands fall into that category. And I think that rap and rock, especially punk rock, share an affinity in the anti-establishment attitude.”
How do you want people to feel when they hear your music? “I want people to feel the way I feel when I listen to music that I love and that inspires me. I want them to feel that feeling from your toe right to the tip of your head, that when you’re just immersing yourself in the music, you love the music and you’re at one with the music. And the energy of the music gives you energy.”
We mentioned Akala’s fledgling business empire earlier. At the time of writing they include his record label Illa State and a restaurant in Ayia Napa. So what next? Unfortunately he is ‘not at liberty to discuss those yet.’
“But don’t be surprised at anything you hear my name involved with because just like to don’t like to limit myself artistically, as a businessman, anything that I feel doesn’t harm anybody first and foremost, makes people’s lives better and can make money is something I’d like to be involved in," he warns us.
Although Akala might have been tagged as the latest ‘voice of yoof’, he’s at pains to point out that he’s not ‘a prophet or anything like that.’ For example, take the disclaimer at the end of ‘I Don’t Know’ which explains that the album has been the artist’s opinion only.
“It’s explaining that yeah I’m giving you my thoughts and my feelings and my opinions for the last however long but I can’t actually really know, and don’t take it that I think I’m the answer to the world or I’m a prophet or anything like that. I’d rather talk about the ills of the world or the ills that I perceive, than about a Rolls-Royce or about how many women I’ve slept with this week. I just don’t think those things are important artistically.”
So you’re coming out as quite a good role model there? “I wouldn’t say that’s the intention. I think I’m honestly just being myself, and if by virtue of that that makes me a role model, then great, but I’m not trying to be anybody I’m not. I’m genuinely interested in the things that I put across.”
Such interests include Shakespeare, proving you don’t have to have died 400 years ago to be a fan of the Bard. Take track ‘Comedy Tragedy History’ for example. “A lot of people don’t realise that I was set a challenge on radio and I had to fit 27 Shakespeare plays into a freestyle. And so the first two verses on ‘Comedy, Tragedy, History’, they’ve got 27 Shakespeare plays in them. And the last two verses contain all of Shakespeare’s most famous quotes.”
He gives an example: ‘Bat boy Akala’s a diamond fella / All you little boys are a comedy of errors / You bellow but you fellows get played like the cello / I’m doing my thing / You’re jealous like Othello.’
Was it quite tricky trying to fit all of those in? “Oddly enough, because I was under pressure and I was live on radio, it wasn’t. It just came to me. Because I knew if I failed, I’d look like an idiot.”
Finally, Akala has something to say about commercial hip hop which many say has been diluted considerably by America’s diamonds-and-Cristal loving exports. “It has become bollocks. Rubbish. It isn’t about any of the things that hip hop’s supposed to be about: it isn’t about artistic community, it isn’t about artistic integrity, it isn’t a true reflection of what life is about, man. It’s about champagne and naked girls and talking shit and not actually having to be a good MC,” he spits.
What other good and upcoming hip hop acts are there here? Akala names the better known Sway, Kano and Lethal Bizzle to begin, before telling us to keep our eyes out for Sincere and Wariko. “UK hip hop’s in health,” he finishes. It certainly is.
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Akala's album 'Freedom Lasso' is out October 1st through Illastate.
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