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Miss Dynamite with Akala at the BT Digital Music Awards |
‘Society has failed to fill young people with self-esteem’– Akala
KENTISH Town rapper Akala has repeated his call for schools to give more positive history lessons to pupils.
Kingslee Daley, who uses the stage name Akala and is the brother of Miss Dynamite, says he believes the situation has worsened since he first made the call, in this paper, in August last year.
Speaking at the BT Digital Music awards at the Roundhouse, he said: “From what I’ve seen things have got worse. I’ve got a problem with the way history is taught in schools. It’s taught in a very narrow-minded manner. “If all people were taught in a better fashion, about the beauty of all cultures, that every race has contributed massively, we’d all have much better understanding of cultures.”
The former Acland Burghley pupil added: “In school African history starts with slavery. To begin to suggest it starts with slavery is like saying European history starts with the bubonic plague. It doesn’t even begin to tell the story. Africa has mountains of history.”
The 24-year-old rapper believes it’s time for society to take a stand: “A lot of the problems that have been so well publicised throughout London and in Camden have been manifest since I’ve been young because of society’s refusal to address them in infant stages and will continue until all of us take a step back and think what have we done to create teenage murderers. “We’ve excluded and alienated young people. We’ve failed to fill them with self-esteem, self-confidence and educate them about the brilliance they naturally have. The education and social systems have not helped with these problems. The media reinforces these stereotypes.” |
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