b. Kingslee Daley, London, England. The brother of urban artist Ms. Dynamite, this UK rapper enjoyed critical acclaim during the mid-00s with his intelligent, progressive hip-hop. The young Daley was a talented soccer player and played with the youth teams of Wimbledon and West Ham United before choosing to concentrate on music. Adopting the title Akala, from the Buddhist phrase for "immovable", his association with the burgeoning UK grime scene led to the release of his underground debut The War Mixtape. This 2004 release featured the local favourites "Welcome To England", "Banga 4 Da Streets" and "War", and, although the beats were standard rap fare, it was Akala's confident flow and lyrical intelligence that marked him out as a contender.
Akala's 2006 debut proper, It's Not A Rumour, sampled a wide range of soul, rock, dance and even folk, with lyrics dripping in contemporary London culture and attacks on the mediocrity of mainstream rap. The album was hailed as a leading example of the new generation of progressive UK hip-hop, and at the end of the year won the rapper a MOBO award for Best Hip-Hop Artist. Akala maintained the quality on the following year's Freedom Lasso, which featured the remarkable "Comedy, Tragedy, History" (name-dropping dozens of Shakespeare's plays and characters) and even diverted into electro on "You Put A Spell On Me".
