AKALA | LIVE REVIEW
The Globe, Cardiff, Sun 21 Apr
Akala is a busy man. With five proper albums, two books, an assortment of mixtapes, a BBC2 documentary, and a slew of political TV debates already under his belt, it seems that the Renaissance Man of UK hip-hop always has something on the go.
Latest project Visions is a comic book EP – that is to say, a versed graphic novel comic book paired with a five-track music project, with the lyrics mirrored between them. The EP ‘chapters’ form a basic skeleton for tonight’s setlist and the graphic novel art features heavily in the stage video projections, but otherwise tonight is a fairly conventional gig – though still a very good one.
Refreshingly, there’s no backing vocal track or hypeman to compensate for skill, just a DJ, live drummer, and a microphone. With expert breath control and a sniper-precise technical flow, Akala has always been a rapper’s rapper, and in 2018 the MC remains a shining antidote to the plague of new wave grime artists who struggle to spit their own bars live. This is hip-hop as it’s supposed to be done.
Opening songs Visions Chapter One and the punchier Bang With Us? make for an apt statement of intent for tonight’s show. Akala can weave a story one minute, but also get a crowd throwing gunfingers and pulling screwfaces the next. The oscillation runs throughout the set, keeping energy levels high while doing just enough to please the more reserved conscious hip-hop fans lounging on the balcony upstairs.
The regular U-turns in tone do have their downsides. The sombre violin strings and images of military conflict conjured up in Ruins Of Empires, for example, lose a lot of their lasting poignancy when sandwiched between the bouncy Roll Wid Us and XXL. Political bite and burning intellect might be Akala’s trademarks, but he’s at his musical best with his dreads bouncing around his shoulders and the crowd shouting their hearts out. Luckily for the fans, the Visions tour serves up plenty of both.
words JASPER WILKINS