Akala

Kingslee James McLean Daley (born 1 December 1983), known professionally as Akala, is a British rapper, writer and activist. In 2006, he was voted the Best Hip Hop Act at the MOBO Awards and has been included on the annual Powerlist of the 100 most influential Black British people in the UK, most recently making the 2021 edition.

Early life and education

Daley was born in Crawley, in 1983 to a Scottish mother and Jamaican father who separated before he was born, and grew up with his mother in Kentish Town. He has recalled the day he realised that his mother was white, and was embarrassed by her whiteness. His mother had educated him about black history and introduced him to radical black thinkers, yet there would always remain a racial dimension to those relationships. Daley's older sister is rapper Ms. Dynamite.

His stepfather was a stage manager at the Hackney Empire theatre, and he often visited it before his teens. His mother enrolled him in a pan-African Saturday school, about which he states "I benefited massively from a specifically black community-led self-education tradition that we don't talk about very much because it doesn't fit with the image [of black families]". When accepting honorary degrees, he thanked "the entire Caribbean pan-African community that helped me through school and encouraged an intellectual curiosity and self development from a very young age."

At age six, Daley's state primary school put him in a special needs group for pupils with learning difficulties and English as a second language. He attended Acland Burghley School for secondary education. Daley saw a friend attacked with a meat cleaver to the skull when he was 12, and carried a knife himself for a period. He went on to achieve ten GCSEs and took maths a year early. He has said he "was in the top 1 per cent of GCSEs in the country. [I] got 100 per cent in [my] English exam." As a teenager, Daley focused on football, being on the schoolboy books of both West Ham United and AFC Wimbledon, and dropped out of college. He is a fan of Arsenal. Daley did not attend university, but has said he often envies those who do.

Daley has two honorary degrees in recognition of his educational work. On 23 June 2018, he received an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University as a Doctor of Art. On 31 July 2018, he received an honorary degree from Brighton University.

Musical career

2003–2009: Early years and breakthrough

Daley got his stage name from Acala, a Buddhist term for "immovable", and started releasing music in 2003 from his own independent music label, Illa State Records. He released his first mixtape, The War Mixtape, in 2004.

In 2006, he released his first album, It's Not a Rumour. This proved to be his breakthrough album, containing the single "Shakespeare" (a reference to his self-proclaimed title "The Black Shakespeare") which made the BBC Radio 1 playlist. His work was recognised with the MOBO Award for Best Hip Hop Act. Additionally in 2006, a mixtape, A Little Darker, was released under the name "Illa State", featuring Akala and his sister, Ms. Dynamite, as well as cameo appearances by many other artists.

Daley appeared for a live session on BBC Radio 1Xtra where he was challenged to come up with a rap containing as many Shakespeare play titles as he could manage, he wrote and performed a minute-long rap containing 27 different Shakespeare play titles in under half an hour and later recorded these lyrics in the studio and turned it into the single "Comedy Tragedy History".

In 2007, Daley released his second album, Freedom Lasso, containing the "Comedy Tragedy History" track. The song "Love in my Eyes" heavily sampled Siouxsie and the Banshees' song "Love in a void" with the voice of Siouxsie Sioux. In 2008, The War Mixtape Vol. 2 was released, along with an EP of acoustic remixes.

2010–present: Doublethink, Knowledge Is Power, and beyond

Daley's third studio album, DoubleThink, was released in 2010, and holds a strong theme of George Orwell's popular novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. DoubleThink contains tracks such as "Find No Enemy" and "Yours and My Children" detailing some of the sights he saw on his trip to Brazil. In November 2010, Daley headlined a live performance at the British Library, to launch the "Evolving English" exhibition and featured performances by British poet Zena Edwards, comedian Doc Brown and British rapper Lowkey which also included Daley taking part in a hip hop panel discussion alongside Saul Williams, U.S professor M. K. Asante and Lowkey. Daley appeared on Charlie Sloth's show on Radio 1Xtra on 18 July 2011, performing "Fire in the Booth", and after the great reception it received he returned again in May 2012 and provided "Part 2".

In May 2012, Daley released a two-part mixtape, Knowledge Is Power, containing "Fire in the Booth", and followed the release with a promotional tour in the autumn of 2012. In March 2013, Daley announced via his social media feeds that his fourth album would be released in May 2013, pushing back the future EP The Ruin of Empires to later in 2013. His fourth album, The Thieves Banquet, was released on 27 May 2013, including the songs "Malcolm Said It", "Maangamizi" and "Lose Myself" (feat. Josh Osho).

Live performances

In 2007, Daley was the first hip hop artist to perform his own headline concert in Vietnam. He has performed at various U.K. festivals, including V Festival, Wireless, Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Parklife, Secret Garden Party and Isle of Wight, and has supported artists such as Christina Aguilera, MIA, Richard Ashcroft, Audiobullys, DJ Shadow, The Gotan Project and Scratch Perverts on their U.K/European tours.

In 2008, Daley featured at the South by Southwest music festival in Texas and in 2010 he toured the UK with Nas and Damian Marley on the "Distant Relatives" tour, which included the British rapper Ty.