Hip Hop, Power and Resistance

 A MOBO award winning hip hop artist will be visiting Cardiff University to deliver a guest lecture to social science students.

Kingslee 'Akala' Daley will give the talk ahead of a performance at The Moon Club on Thursday 5^th December to showcase his fourth studio album 'The Thieves Banquet'.

Akala is a record label owner and social entrepreneur who fuses rap/rock/electro-punk with lyrical storytelling.  In 2009, Akala launched the 'The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company', a music theatre production enterprise designed to create social cohesion between young people from varying social and economic backgrounds.   

His talk on 'Hip Hop, Power and Resistance' was organised by Cardiff School of Social Sciences PhD student Jessie Abrahams. Jessie said: "I decided to invite Akala to speak because I was inspired by his passion and drive to use his power as a rap star to make changes to disadvantaged young people's life chances through engaging them in theatre and Shakespeare and drawing connections to hip hop."

"Akala's lecture will be beneficial to students and staff at Cardiff by highlighting a real example of positive and resistant hip hop. It will also be a great opportunity to engage the public and young people with Sociology and Cardiff University by making it accessible to them through Akala" Jessie added.

Dr Robin Smith, Lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, said: "The topics of power and resistance in society are strong themes in our undergraduate curriculum and in our 'Culture, Transformation and Subjectivity' research theme at the School.

"I am delighted that Akala is coming to the University to offer his insights to our students and to inspire them to think about culture, identity and power from Akala's perspective."

'Hip Hop, Power and Resistance' takes place at 5.00pm on Thursday December 5^th  in the Council Chamber, Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University.

The talk is free and open to the public, but booking is essential. Please register at: www.socsiakala.eventbrite.co.uk

Tickets for Akala's performance at The Moon Club can be purchased from the Ents24 website