[star rating =4/5]
AWARD-WINNING hip-hop artist and writer Akala takes to the stage once again to challenge our views on modern society and how we see human beings as a species.
With a particular focus on class, race and a brief note on how colonialism shaped both, this talk cuts through the noise created by the political storm that’s been whipped up in recent years to give people a little plain and simple truth.
Much of Akala’s talk was drawn from his new book, Natives. There was a particular focus on the early chapters, which talked about his upbringing in the general political turmoil that was the 80’s.
There was a particularly disturbing story about a time that he was put into a special needs school for no reason other than because he was of Caribbean descent.
He talked about how he viewed it at the time – how he felt like he’d done something wrong and how the teachers always fed him biscuits there.
He said that, in hindsight, he realised he was being “rewarded to fail” at that school.
It was a chilling story to listen to, enough to make the younger generation wonder what their lives would’ve been like if they’d been born 20-30 years before.
Akala also touched on where the modern world is heading, and how Asian and African countries will eventually end up surpassing the western world due to their much faster rate of progression.
It was not only enlightening, but also challenging. It’s hard think of countries with very serious problems in three dimensions. Akala sought to help his audience do just that and, in doing so, relieved ignorance and created a much more fact-full view of the world.
There were one or two timing issues in the show. Akala got so engrossed in telling the audience about his life, his book and the world’s misconceptions that he missed his thirty-minute que by a significant margin.
As a result, there was very little time for Q and A at the end. But once he irons out these timing issues, Akala’s show might just be one of the most interesting and illuminating shows at the Fringe.
