Spoilt for choice

We're sick of the same champagne popping video every five minutes from US hip hop and we're doing our own thing now because we're sick off all that nonsense.

Akala
Quotes of the week

UK hip hop rapper Akala is probably best described as the kid at school who you were most envious of, the kid that was good at everything.

A straight A's student, Akala was on West Ham United's books at an early age, before moving on to Wimbledon having shown good promise as a centre back.

In that position most boys probably wouldn't dream of doing anything else other than play football, but Akala decided his heart was no longer in it and it was time to pursue another love...music, he told Soccer AM why.

"It was a conscious decision to leave football because it became a job effectively and my heart wasn't in it as I got older so I consciously left it to do music," he explained.

"I still wouldn't mind a kick about but I haven't done it in years."

Playing days

Since then the Arsenal fan has forged a successful career in the music industry winning a MOBO in 2006 for his album It's Not

A Rumour and has even started up his own independent record label with his sister Ms Dynamite, a fellow award winning artist.

However Akala was happy to talk about football and in particular reminisce about the day he played against some of his Arsenal heroes in front of Arsene Wenger.

"I was at Wimbledon playing for the reserves when I was 16 and we were playing against Arsenal reserves.

"There were quite a few boys playing as well, Sylvinho was playing, Kanu was playing, Ray Parlour was playing... little bit of name dropping there!"

"My team at West Ham had Glen Johnson, Anton Ferdinand and Jermain Defoe was the year above me. At Wimbledon Nigel Reo-Coker was captain of my age group and basically anyone who is under 25 I've played with or against.

UK hip hop

Akala's next single entitled Comedy Tragedy History has over 40 references to William Shakespeare and he was keen to emphasise that this was one of the difference between UK and US hip hop.

"In School you have to study Shakespeare and I just felt it was something unusual and against the grain that you wouldn't expect a rapper to do," he explained.

"There's a really strong hip hop scene in the UK at the moment," he added. "Especially independent movements with self-owned companies, people like myself and Sway are doing really well off our own back without any major companies involved.

"If you do do a deal with a big company you have to accept that it is on their terms and with us there is still a perception where they're putting UK hip hop in the same bracket as US hip hop, when we don't rap about any of the same things at this point and we don't make the same music.

"We're sick of the same champagne popping video every five minutes from US hip hop and we're doing our own thing now because we're sick off all that nonsense. We've got our own sound and our own way of doing things and it's British!"