An Evening with Akala — State of the Nation
BAFTA and MOBO-winning artist, author, and historian Akala delivers a razor-sharp analysis of Britain's current moment on race, class, and solidarity.
Why we picked this
Akala brings a hip-hop artist's precision and a historian's depth to questions most public intellectuals avoid. His Natives reshaped how Britain talks about race and class.
Akala is one of those rare figures who commands attention across audiences that rarely overlap. A BAFTA and MOBO Award-winning hip-hop artist, he is also the author of Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire, a Sunday Times bestseller that forced a mainstream reckoning with how race and class interlock in British life. He runs the Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company and holds an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes.
This evening at the Royal Festival Hall draws from Natives and his broader body of work to assess where Britain stands at this moment — politically, culturally, racially. Expect hard-hitting analysis, deeply personal stories, and the kind of clarity that comes from someone who has lived the contradictions he describes.
The event has sold out, but a waitlist is available through the Southbank Centre website.