Rapping Postcoloniality: Akala’s “The Thieves Banquet” and Neocolonial Critique

Abstract

MC/rapper, public speaker, journalist, graphic novelist, and founder of the Hip-hop Shakespeare Company, Akala (b. Kingslee James Daley, 1983) is one of the rappers at the forefront of the UK’s thriving hip-hop scene. His lyrics and music demonstrate an awareness of history and, in particular, the British Empire’s shameful past as global colonizer and profiteer of the slave trade. Focusing on his album The Thieves Banquet (2013), this article investigates Akala’s engagement with postcolonial thinking and neocolonial critique through the use of Western classical music tropes and multi-accentuality to create hybrid counter-narratives reflective of 21st-century global power relations.