Released: May 14, 2012

Yo, Akala
Knowledge is power
Volume 1, Mixtape 28th of may Listen
Akala music.com
Tiny bit more vocal please actually
Listen, Knowledge is power always
Listen

Oi, Mate my personal life's great
Some of you would love me more, If I rubbed that in you're face
Okay, well
Let us run down the resume and have a little chat about how Akalas living today
Big whip, nice yard, Been all over the globe
Look how many continents I have done, Shows
Couple little company's, Neat little office
Everything going swell, Little bit of profit
Built a business educating kids from the blocks
So far as I'm concerned you gotta be a mug to not rate him
Own my own masters, Still my own master
Novels and scripts on the way
Rap is just a part of, The genius and it's said
And he knows it, Dickhead, Since I used to kick ball for West ham
With my bighead
Back in school days wearing hand-me downs from my sister
And gal' was still onto man, Now thats some ras charisma
As just a nippa, I took my first pull of rizla
And who you think gave me that? yeah my bigger sista
So when we speak of struggle cousin it's yours
You know the same old madness, working class poor
Yeah, So, may of won a couple awards
But I guarantee my family's just as messed up as yours
All the abuse and the alcoholism and drug addiction
Uncles going to prison
This is working class livin' in Britain, It ain't great
You gotta be kiddin'
So please don't ever get confused by me spittin'
Cos', yes I said the ghetto's in our head
But no I didn't mean that if you live next to a food yard that thats in your dreams
I meant believing in the madness they spout about us
It's far more dangerous than putting us in council houses
So yeah I criticize but from a place of love, never, ever
Because I think that I've become above
Every young broth, you wanna judge as a tug'
It's me minus a little guidance and love
So I think that your the mug
And why be smug when it's an actual fact
We all commit crime, Simply by paying tax
Cos' we then go and tickle the people in Iraq
And ask them so politely for all their minerals we extract
We blew children's heads off, Set fire to backs
Were a gangsta nation get down or you get clapped, so
When you see the yout' running around on the road with heaters
Don't be surprised, they're just copying their leaders
Long as the wars stay in places that are brown and poor
We can all pretend to be abhorred but we applaud
If you go up to Knightsbridge and get violent
The police man who duppies you will probably get knighted
If I don't wanna fight you cuz'
It ain't cos' I'm frightened
It's just rather fight with those who really think they're titans, shit
I ain't scared of bleeding
I ain't scared of breathing another breath in this world where everything is so uneven
Where millions murdered in the Congo and it's barely news
But if a footballers wife should buy a pair of shoes
I'm supposed to give a fuck apparently, I do not
The worlds a reflection of you're block
And if you think a world that profit from their death, and be totally cool
And things should be better cos' you live here, your a bloody fool
Look around the genocidal abuse
I swear humanity ain't nothing but a virus with shoes
Then I pick my nephew up from school, and I look at the youths
And see the love that they show each other and I'm just so confused
Because they ain't learnt yet what is their race or religion
So we're put unconditioned but we learn to play our position
In the system
Look what that does to our recognition of self
We grow suspicion of our own intuition, listen
Akalas sick but he raps about racism to much
Could you imagine I gave a flying f
Cos' it's amazing, how many wanna claim they love this music
With no respect for the actual struggle that produced it
Did Hip-Hop not start in segregated hoods, are them hoods not still segregated?
So it's really good
And the first nation not still on reservations where the age of 46
Is the average life expectation
And fellas, I wonder where the Favelas, could be suddenly knocked down
And replaced with something better
If you got sense you see fights are joined in race class and
Gender are sides of the same coin
So, if you really down for justice whoever the people who suffered, whoever you are
I consider you my sisters, brothers
But call it what it is like Carlin or Bill Hicks
Not these patronizing left-wing little twits who ask me dumb shit
On the superior tip
And wanna act like cos I read I saw less violence as a kid
Don't make me an exception
For your mental protection
From acceptin' the madness in the system we are left in
That was the clearest thing to come of august events
All the closet bigots started speaking their minds again
So when a Jamaican or Asians misbehavin' of course it's because of their skin
Blonde hair kills a million people, thats just him
And it's entertaining some people are so thick
But I prefer that to all of the fake grins
Cos' it's the only problem people claim they wanna so but don't actually wanna talk about
How it evolved, You are told, this country really really yours sir?
What they did to brown people they did to their own poor first
And originally in the states, working class whites were also enslaved
Still no one talks about it today
Ever since the master came with the system of privileged
Made the working whites the overseers mulatto the house
Cos' put the darkest blacks in the field, that mind is with us still
Billion dollar industry's, skin cream and bleaching pills
And lets be honest most people of my complexion to this very day still think they're
Better than the darker section
You say it's changed then only educate me about Wilberforce not about the Africans in Haiti
Who beat the army's of the British, Spanish and napoleon, From the moment it was stolen
From em, There was no controllin' em
When I was in school, she said no you never fought for freedom
No, we freed you and you were on your knees pleading
And once more did you know that we kind of saved you from the barbarism of Africa
You should be grateful
And enough of our own people can't be bothered to read
That they actually believe that we were swinging from trees
They don't know the kingdom of Congo had embassy's in Italy
500 years ago, Literally
Ain't heard of Saint Maurice or Septimius Severus
They ain't studying the past cos' they think it's irrelevant
And attempts of pretending ancient Egyptians weren't African
Nuttin' more than pseudo intellectual lies
They obviously ain't read what Aristotle, Herodotus said
About people they saw for their own eyes and
Egypt's been invaded since the fall of the pharaoh's
Not once, Not twice, But many many times
And nobody wants to explain why so many statues have missin' noses
Even when those statues made of granite
It ain't one people alone, mis-taught about themselves
We live on Celtic land, But don't learn about the Celts
The same, Irish people you characterize as stupid
During the dark ages some of the most educated living in Europe
And did you learn the numbers you count with every day
Were invented by Indian people, I bet you didn't
Or how many million Indians fought for Britain in both world wars
Still you got the cheek to call them immigrants
We don't learn about the Moors of course, for some that knowledge dangerous
Is it a problem the impact they had on the Renaissance
When people take power over another group
We minimize their achievements so we can make it feel true
So if you think Columbus was first to sail ocean blue
You probably believe Elvis created rock&roll too
And oh, for the record no doubt I believe in peace
But not for one second will I turn the other cheek
They slap you, slap them back and take teeth
The only way a bully ever learn is getting beat
Fight, fire with fire nah fire with water
See the life you enforce is stronger than the destroyer
That's why these MC's can't speak to me
NO, All men are not made equally
My brains made of iron fiber, conductin' the livest wire
My average grades higher than Oxford and Cambridge require
I don't want credit, because I got a message
I want credit cos' I'm the best MC
Dead it
When I came out way back in 04
Sister had just won every award
Most man would have done the bait thing
Put big sis on the chorus chords
That would of been a-list or
Quickly I would of been famous more
But look how I came in this ting' raw
Bang of the streets and more
If I MC'd and I heard me rap i'd be like what the
I ain't never gonna' be that good so
I better not push my luck
It will embarrass me
Only insanity, Would make you challenge me
Better hope if we bump heads, that day that I fee like charity
If not it's a beaten and ain't no use in searching for meaning
Cuz all it means is that you are crap and I am a genius
Wait I'm Panama I'll push the parameter
Can you imagine a Pharaoh more sicker than average
I'll kill them with character
Benjamin Banneker
Look at the marriage of stamina
Damage ya
Boy from Britannica
Got love from the whole in the calendar, so cold that I roll in a Challenger
Why your men roll with the ametures
Im too much harder
You can just call him Father Akala
But I don't talk shit like a pastor
Many know that I'm smarter than Arthur
Bloody disaster
Fire astarter
Probably prodigy
Make you a martyr
For these crap MC's that mumble
Then see me in the flesh and crumble
Never told you that I was humble
No I'm not, Don't lie
I'm so sure with my writing ability
That I feel like I'm finding divinity
Sit down and rhyme soliloquy
My agility, timing is Military
What scene? get a Guillotine for the Mini-me
It seems ya'll fiend for the the mimicry
Your team couldn't dream of this synygy
That I be when I scheme on a wicked beat
There he goes again with the big words, with bare syllables
Get your dictionaries out
That's what I'm about
Clowns wanna shout
Thrash him, smash him in the mouth
Bloody professor
Man of the letter
I've read and I've read and I'm sure that I'm better
Never regretting the endeavor to dead an oppressor
I think that they're lepers that think that their pleasures are better endeavors
Don't know about precious but
See me? born in a rage
Maroon blood, coursing my veins
As you can see I was born for the stage
But, I'll never be their cultural maid
Some say that we're political
Cos' what they're doing isn't
Don't they preach a political doctrine called materialism
But, for all the Italian clothes that you wear
Or German cars that you drive
Or french Champagne that we buy
We'll still be monkeys in their eyes
So why you are beggin' it
Who knows, Italians fight to wear Jamaican clothes?
Italians call their own women hoes?
For everyone's entertainment bro?
But hey, what do I know
I'm just the one with the coldest flows
All over the globe baddin' down shows
But still don't oil my chest and pose
Pose a threat to the power structure
Never cause' were anything special
But because were the people together
And thats the only way things changin'. EVER

Akala

Kingslee James Daley, better known by the stage name Akala, is an English rapper, poet and academic. Originally from Kentish Town, London, his older sister is rapper/vocalist Ms. Dynamite.