Akala Profile picture
Jul 31, 2018 10 tweets 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
One of the things I enjoyed/clocked re the release of #Natives was the deafening silence of the right wing press... even outlets that usually have so a little bit to say about rappers and the issues covered in the book....
Here you have a mere rapper play acting at being a historian and getting published and spending a good few weeks on the best sellers and all that. Great time/chance to show what a fraud man really is....
They were all sent the book of course and if they could have torn it to shreds obviously would have. Not to say there are not areas of valid scholarly disagreement...
But to even review my work honestly (no matter where u sit politically) would be to admit the thousands of hours of work and obvious diligence that went into it. Better to ignore entirely..
Keep in mind that the version of #Natives we released is the non-academic version in that it was originally 40k words longer had 2/3 more citations and twice the bibliography. But at a certain point your just having and intellectual wank over how much you have actually read! lol
So better to act like you can't see it. Which is fine by me obviously. Just noting something
With my mate Afua they could try to dismiss her with 'you went private school and Oxford what you complaining about' (black academics that say stuff they don't like are 'complaining' obviously.
They obviously can't run that one with me because vast majority of boys that grew up like me don't even get 5 exams...
So it's hard to properly oppose man while pretending to care about educational mobility or Shakespeare or Homer or History for that matter.
For a lot of these 'academics' and 'journos' to even debate/engage man as an equal with whom one happens to disagree is an admission of defeat in itself given where we both started.

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More from @akalamusic

Sep 17, 2018
Also it should be understood that this argument is a bit circular as the genres (like their creators) are literal cousins let me explain... a quick thread
American Hip Hop is as a matter of fact a fusion of both BlackAm culture and that of Caribbean immigrants to theNY (see Can’t Stop Won’t Stop for a good history of this) just to illustrate the point here are just a few of the Caribbean-American Hip Hop pioneers off my head..
The founding father Kook Herc, Gil Scott-Heron, KRS ONE, Biggie, Afrika Bam, Pete Rock, Busta Rhymes, Joey Badass, Grandmaster Flash, Slikk Rikk etc etc etc.
Read 6 tweets
Sep 15, 2018
I think what might help these discussion be more productive is Americans knowing a little more of the other side of the coin and I mean this with total love and respect so let me try to give a little bit of context (might be useful, might not)
Britain is the second largest market in the world for Black Am culture not just because of the ‘special relationship’ nor just cos of UK subsidiary’s of Universal but also bcos of decades of marketing that culture here by African/Caribbean migrants. Let’s take Hip Hop:
Long b4 mainstream Britain cared about Hip Hop (in fact during all the years it was deliberately excluded from the mainstream here) if someone wanted a DJ Clue or Red Alert Tape - or even a 50cent tape before he signed with em they would have to come to Brixton, Hackney, Mossside
Read 14 tweets
Sep 8, 2018
1/2 USA? Murders per person are higher in several British cities than LDN and always have been. Also there are 1.2 million black folk in this city, in a terrible year maybe 50 of them will kill someone so ‘most’ is clearly *a little bit* of an exaggeration.
Are black uni students involved in violent crime? Footballers? Doctors? Grannies? Or is it same demographic in black communities as others: Men/boys aged 15-25 from the poorest families, within poorest communities often with a history of familial abuse/expulsion frm school.
None of this gives anyone an excuse to kill other people’s children of course but can you honestly not see how the wording implicates the other 99.9995 % of black londoners who don’t kill anybody by ‘ethnic extension’ which is quite ironic because...
Read 6 tweets
Sep 4, 2018
A few people have asked me about the pan-African Saturday school I went to, the particular one I went to has closed down and the movement in general is probably not as strong as when I grew up, however the tradition of supplementary community self education is alive and well see
Nigerian Schools Foundation UK: nsf.community
National Association Of Black Supplementary Schools: nabss.org.uk
Community School Hackney acschool.org.uk/about.html
EYLA: eyla.org.uk
WYLA: wylauk.com/about
Oh and how could I forget the Manhood Academy manhoodacademy.co.uk
Read 4 tweets
Aug 21, 2018
you still trying to make a fictional 'argument' with me. I agreed 500times over that there is bigotry among some African immigrants in America so that's NOT where we disagree.... however...
There is also bigotry/idiocy and blind spots from BA toward immigrants, Americans living and working abroad in 'other people's' countries and a long tradition black migrants behaving quite differently see: UNIA, Malcolm, Stokely, Kool Herc, KRS, Biggies mummy etc etc
What I find ridiculous is you and others falling back on 'you are not American' rather than a critical response to what im actually saying. Countless BA have written books/given lectures on Africa & Caribbean their work/ideas should be judged by its quality not their passport.
Read 5 tweets
Aug 1, 2018
Funny thing is this. If someone actually bothered to critically read my work and point to the flaws - there are flaws in all works of history by the very nature of the discipline - I could respect it. None have yet had the minerals 2 but want to bang about academic credibility.
There are errors/blindspots and out of date info in books written by some of the greatest historians ever, so clearly there must be some in mine. People are too lazy to find them but wana chat to man. OK
Here I am having a chat about Shakespeare with some of the leading scholars in the world (people who do indeed know way more than I here) as you can see I made a total fool of myself cos I'm just pretending to have done the reading. LOL
Read 7 tweets

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