Akala

Akala (Kingslee Daley) is an award-winning rapper, journalist, author, activist and poet from London, UK.

His debut album, It’s Not a Rumour, won Best Hip Hop Act at the MOBO Awards in 2006 and he released four more albums over the next decade. Akala presented the BBC Two programme, Poetry: Between the Lines – The Romantics, which won a BAFTA Children’s Award in 2015, and in 2021, Akala was included on the Powerlist of the 100 most influential Black British people in the UK.

Akala has authored three books. His first, Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire, became a Sunday Times Bestseller in 2018 and earned Akala an Honorary Degree from the University of Brighton and an Honorary Doctorate of the Arts from Oxford Brooke’s University.

Akala’s career is now focused on writing, presenting and public speaking. In 2026, he embarked on his State of the Nation speaking tour and he continues to work with the Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, which he founded in 2009.

Why Akala is vegan

Akala eats a plant-based diet for health reasons, believing humans are not designed to eat meat or consume dairy. He feels healthier and stronger since giving up meat.

“I don’t believe human beings are designed to eat meat, I believe that meat is detrimental to our health… Humans are the only animals in the world that drink another animal’s milk, and we just assume it’s normal and logical, and people will actually argue with you until they’re blue in the face that humans are designed to drink cow’s milk. But we’re not cows.”¹vegan hip hop movement. 2015. Akala on Veganism. Available: https://www.facebook.com/veganhiphopmovement/videos/akala-on-veganism/10153918092404258/ [Accessed 12 March 2021].