Akala

His stepdad was a stage manager at the Hackney Empire theatre, and he often visited it before his teens. He also attended pan-African Saturday school, stating "I benefited massively from a specifically black community-led self-education tradition that we don’t talk about very much because it doesn’t fit with the image [of black families]". When accepting honorary degrees, he has said he "would like to thank the entire Caribbean pan-African community that helped me through school and encouraged an intellectual curiosity and self development from a very young age."

In November 2019, along with 34 other musicians, Akala signed a letter endorsing the Corbyn in the 2019 UK general election with a call to end austerity.

In May 2018, Daley published Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire. The book is part biography, and part polemic on race and class. The overall ideological framework of the book is a pragmatic, socialist-oriented Pan-Africanism that seeks the liberation of all humanity from oppression and exploitation. At the same time, it highlights the shared problems faced by African communities worldwide in a global system of imperialism.

When speaking to schoolchildren or prisoners, or writing lyrics, Daley's message is always to work twice as hard. “My analysis of institutionalised racism is not ‘oh, this is an excuse to fail’ – quite the opposite. The earlier you're aware of the hurdles, the easier they are to jump over.”

In May 2017, he endorsed Corbyn in the 2017 UK general election. He wrote in The Guardian: "So why will I be voting now? Jeremy Corbyn. It's not that I am naïve enough to believe that one man (who is, of course, powerless without the people that support him) can fundamentally alter the nature of British politics, or that I think that if Labour wins that the UK will suddenly reflect his personal political convictions, or even that I believe that the prime minister actually runs the country. However for the first time in my adult life, and perhaps for the first time in British history, someone I would consider to be a fundamentally decent human being has a chance of being elected."

In June 2016, Akala supported Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn after mass resignations from his cabinet and a leadership challenge. He tweeted: "The way these dickhead Labour MP's are snaking @jeremycorbyn eediat ting."

In May 2012, Daley released a two-part mixtape, Knowledge Is Power, containing "Fire in the Booth", and followed the release with a promotional tour in the autumn of 2012. In March 2013, Daley announced via his social media feeds that his fourth album would released in May 2013, pushing back the future EP The Ruin of Empires to later in 2013. His fourth album, The Thieves Banquet, was released on 27 May 2013, including the songs "Malcolm Said It", "Maangamizi" and "Lose Myself" (feat. Josh Osho).

Daley's third studio album, DoubleThink, was released in 2010, and holds a strong theme of George Orwell's popular novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. DoubleThink contains tracks such as "Find No Enemy" and "Yours and My Children" detailing some of the sights he saw on his trip to Brazil. In November 2010, Daley headlined a live performance at the British Library, to launch the "Evolving English" exhibition and featured performances by British poet Zena Edwards, comedian Doc Brown and British rapper Lowkey which also included Daley taking part in a hip hop panel discussion alongside Saul Williams, U.S professor MK Asante and Lowkey. Daley appeared on Charlie Sloth's show on Radio 1Xtra on 18 July 2011, performing "Fire in the Booth", and after the great reception it received he returned again in May 2012 and provided "Part 2".

In November 2010, Daley embarked on his own headline tour of the UK, with 20 dates overall. He was present at the "One Love:No Borders Hip Hop" event held in Birmingham, England in April 2011, with Iron Braydz from London, Lowkey, Logic and other up-and-coming UK artists. In August 2012, he performed at the Outlook Festival and in November 2012, he performed at the second edition of NH7 Weekender music festival in Pune, India.

In 2008, Daley featured at the South by Southwest music festival in Texas and in 2010 he toured the UK with Nas and Damian Marley on the "Distant Relatives" tour, which included the British rapper Ty.

In 2007, Daley released his second album, Freedom Lasso, containing the "Comedy Tragedy History" track. The song "Love in my Eyes" heavily sampled Siouxsie and the Banshees' song "Love in a void" with the voice of Siouxsie Sioux. In 2008, The War Mixtape Vol. 2 was released, along with an EP of acoustic remixes.

In 2007, Daley was the first hip hop artist to perform his own headline concert in Vietnam. He has performed at various U.K. festivals, including V Festival, Wireless, Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Parklife, Secret Garden Party and Isle of Wight, and has supported artists such as Christina Aguilera, MIA, Richard Ashcroft, Audiobullys, DJ Shadow, The Gotan Project and Scratch Perverts on their U.K/European tours.

In 2006, he released his first album, It's Not a Rumour. This proved to be his breakthrough album, containing the single "Shakespeare" (a reference to his self-proclaimed title "The Black Shakespeare") which made the BBC Radio 1 playlist. His work was recognised with the MOBO Award for Best Hip Hop Act. Additionally in 2006, a mixtape, A Little Darker, was released under the name "Illa State", featuring Akala and his sister, Ms. Dynamite, as well as cameo appearances by many other artists.

Daley got his stage name from Acala, a Buddhist term for "immovable", and started releasing music in 2003 from his own independent music label, Illa State Records. He released his first mixtape,The War Mixtape, in 2004.

Kingslee James McLean Daley (born 1 December 1983), better known by the stage name Akala, is a British rapper, journalist, author, activist and poet from Kentish Town, London. In 2006, he was voted the Best Hip Hop Act at the MOBO Awards and has been included on the annual Powerlist of the 100 most influential Black British people in the UK.

Daley was born in Crawley, West Sussex, in 1983 to a Scottish mother and Jamaican father who separated before he was born and grew up with his mother "in the cliched, single-parent working-class family," in Kentish Town, north London. He remembers the day he realised that his mum was white, and was embarrassed by her whiteness, and that she could “never really ‘get it’” when it came to racism. Daley's older sister is rapper Ms. Dynamite.