Akala the English rapper, poet, and journalist released his fourth album "The Thieves Banquet" on 27 May. The album was written and co-produced by Akala and recorded with a full live band featuring Cassell ‘The Beatmaker’ (The Streets) on drums and Eric Appapoulay (Plan B) on bass. I can say that it is arguably Akala’s most inspired work to date.
Obviously I have a favorite track from this album and it is "The Thieves Banquet", a track that reminds me of Immortal Technique's "Peruvian Cocaine". The difference is that Immortal Technique relied on guest appearances for his characters while Akala changes his voice and flow for all 4 of his characters.
The context behind the track is that the devil has a feast and rounds up four of the “greatest thieves in the land”: a monarch of empire, a banking cartel, the head of a religious order and a third-world dictator. These four thieves are then asked, one-by-one to enlighten the devil as to why they’re the greatest thief in the land. The third-world dictator steps up first as Akala modifies his voice to a deep, “oh-so serious tone” and speaks about how he kills anyone who believes that presidential elections should be ‘fair’, condones murder and rape because he wants more money: “with that profit, what’s a little bit of torture?”. The track continues to develop, as your feelings evolve and your hatred begins to breed for these ‘thieves’. The monarch of empire is the second character who steps up and tries to better the general vile words spoken by the third-world dictator: “who do you think trained this amateur dictator to behave this way?”, by insinuating he’s an amateur, the monarch of empire begins to speak about doing worse things, but with an air of concealment behind it. “People think I’m heaven sent”, again, shows how the monarch of empire may look like to the average outsider, but this gathering shows how evil he is when he speaks about deliberately allowing countries to starve to death and encouraging slavery. The third character who steps up is the head of a religious order, as Akala modifies his tone to a more sinister, malevolent one. He speaks about putting on a nice voice and reading the audience a book; the fact he doesn’t call it by its name i.e Bible, Quran shows that the head of the religious order doesn’t care about religion and just uses it as a “cloak” to persist with wrong-doings like paedophilia and using peoples “life savings so I can buy jets”. The final is the cartel banker and, in my opinion, the biggest ‘thief’ of them all as he speaks about all the other three people “depend on me”. He speaks about paying for the “guns, bombs and the tanks” that promote the war that the others in this are involved in. The rap ends with the head of the banking cartel telling the devil “don’t be biased, if you don’t give it to me, I’ll just buy it!” – this, ultimately, shows how money is the root of all evil, as the saying goes, and that the head of the banking cartel is the man who instigates all the other crimes that the other thieves commit.
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