Award-winning artist Akala has attributed his passion for the arts to the Hackney Empire. The rapper spent much of his childhood at the theatre where his step-father worked.
Commenting on the Hackney Empire he said: “There’s a really strong link between that institution and my love of the arts”.
The MOBO winning hip-hop artist, who grew up in nearby Archway in North London, is the founder of The Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, a group that produces workshops which celebrate links between Shakespeare and groups such as the Wu-tang Clan and KRS-One. Akala believes that while Shakespeare is interesting to study on a page, his words must first be seen and performed, just like hip-hop music.
“If you take some hip hop verses, like the Wu-Tang Clan song ‘Better Tomorrow’, it’s really interesting to look at. We use one of the verses from that song in the workshop and we look at how it’s written and rhythm it uses. But in and of themselves, those lyrics weren’t written to be consumed that way.”
He explains that the work of the Bard is the same: “Shakespeare was entertainment, it was meant for the masses. He wrote performance poetry, therefore you have to see it performed, you have to feel the rhythm, someone has to give it life. It’s not something where you sit down and read it without seeing and understanding it beforehand.”
“People see Shakespeare as the prim and proper Queen’s English type of speaking that we see in Elizabethan films. But he was writing during a time of poverty and under-development. ”
Akala pushes those attending his workshops to take pride in intelligence, believing education to be society’s stepping stone, especially for those from disadvantaged communities.
“Education is the only way out for those from a tough background, and I don’t mean in the individual sense of go and get a degree and get a job, but anything you want to change in your life or in your self, you’re going to have to understand about the problems first. And education is the answer.”
However, his workshops appeal to all backgrounds and The Hip Hop Shakespeare Company frequently work abroad, travelling the world to show the links between the playfulness of Shakespeare’s language and hip-hop music.
“It completely varies, we don’t restrict ourselves to ‘hard to reach’ communities. I come from a supposedly tougher background and I obviously feel a responsibility to people like me, but we teach in schools and universities across the country, and the world.”
Fiercely political, Akala’s rap lyrics encompass modern social problems, class and race, and discussions on how the world can change for the better.
His new, yet to be titled album, looks like it will play on this combined love of poetry and political activism:
“There is a lot of political satire and poetry on this album about the random things I see in day-to-day life that if we can’t necessarily change right now, then we can at least articulate the problems, and we can at least take the piss out of those that we think brought us to that place.”
