{"id":48341,"date":"2016-07-20T18:59:07","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T18:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48341"},"modified":"2020-06-22T00:12:27","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T00:12:27","slug":"akala-dynamite-by-any-other-name-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48341","title":{"rendered":"Akala: Dynamite by any other name…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Akala: Dynamite by any other name…<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
\n2013-06-01<\/p>\n

Kate Mossman<\/strong><\/a>, Editor and Pop critic
\nNew Statesman<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nAkala<\/a> in Notting Hill<\/a> last month: \u2018In Brixton<\/a> and Tottenham<\/a> my sister was worshipped because she was representing a side of intellectual black culture that is never usually acknowledged.\u2019 Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Observer<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Rapper, adapter of Shakespeare<\/a> and brother of Ms Dynamite<\/a>, Akala<\/a> is on a mission to correct a few misconceptions<\/em><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago in these pages, Birmingham<\/a> rapper Lady Leshurr<\/a> asked why there had been no high-profile female rappers in the UK<\/a> since Ms Dynamite<\/a>. Akala<\/a> seems a good person to consult \u2013 one, because he’s her brother, and two, because you can ask Akala just about anything and you’ll get a pretty comprehensive answer. In the course of 68 minutes in a London<\/a> community centre under the Westway<\/a>, he talks about 16th-century explorers, Biggie Smalls<\/a>, the universities of 13th-century Timbuktu<\/a>, tai chi<\/a>, the Black Wall Street of Oklahoma<\/a>, the African city portraits of Olfert Dapper<\/a>, Eminem<\/a>, peanuts, Napoleon’s<\/a> generals, traffic lights and golf. But back to Ms Dynamite<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I remember the Daily Mail<\/em> wrote an article about my sister at the time,” he says, “and essentially their argument was, ‘Well, she’s not really black, is she \u2013 she’s quite clever and she’s got a white mum!’ It was so funny the way they tried to co-opt us. Remember that big story about Bob Marley<\/a> and his ‘white dad’ last year? He was unequivocally black power, but he’s rewritten as this fun-loving Rasta<\/a>. Mark Duggan<\/a> [the Tottenham<\/a> man shot by police in August 2011] was also mixed race, but no one’s ever going to co-opt Mark Duggan!”…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Akala: Dynamite by any other name… The Guardian 2013-06-01 Kate Mossman, Editor and Pop critic New Statesman Akala in Notting Hill last month: \u2018In Brixton and Tottenham my sister was worshipped because she was representing a side of intellectual black culture that is never usually acknowledged.\u2019 Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Observer Rapper, adapter of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,8,10],"tags":[15319,15318,24532,22954,24535,1392,24533,24534,2103],"class_list":["post-48341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-akala","tag-kate-mossman","tag-kingslee-daley","tag-kingslee-james-daley","tag-ms-dynamite","tag-music","tag-niomi-arleen-mclean-daley","tag-niomi-mclean-daley","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48341"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59754,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48341\/revisions\/59754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}