AWARD winning hip-hop artist and community activist Akala will be speaking to students about race, class and imprisonment this week at a lecture hosted by the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University

Akala won the title of Best Hip Hop Artist at the 2006 MOBO awards, and also founded The Hip Hop Shakespeare Company.

His lecture, titled “Who’s the Gangster?”, will take place at 3pm in Geoffrey Manton Lecture Theatre 1 on Thursday, November 29.

Lecturer in Criminology Waqas Tufail, who organised the event, said: “I invited Akala as he offers a powerful message that flows not only through his critically acclaimed music but through his success in developing The Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, a music theatre production company primarily aimed at educating and empowering young people.

Alternative voice

Waqas continued: “Akala’s music frequently touches upon topics that sociology and criminology students are concerned with tackling; from racism to inequality, from the legacy and impact of war and imperialism to addressing themes of social conditioning and politics.

“Akala offers an alternative voice that is intellectually stimulating as well as educational and I’m sure students will be inspired by the energy his music and his persona have to offer”

Since its inception in 2009, The Hip Hop Shakespeare Company has worked with actors including Sir Ian McKellen – who was part of the launch event – and Colin Salmon, while Akala himself has toured internationally with world famous acts including Jay Z and Richard Ashcroft.

To register your place, please visit www.akalalecture.eventbrite.co.uk

Ticket giveaway

Akala also has a gig that same night in Manchester at Sound Control on Oxford Road. He will be giving three pairs of tickets away to students at the lecture, and further tickets can be purchased via http://www.soundcontrolmanchester.co.uk/events/akala/

Please contact Waqas with any questions at w.tufail@mmu.ac.uk

November 27th, 2012 - 09:53am

photo credit pshikotra event photography 

MMU’S Reader in Creative Writing Jean Sprackland said she was “amazed and delighted” to win the £10,000 Portico Prize for non-fiction.

Jean beat competition from the likes of Simon Armitage and Jeanette Winterson to win the prize for her book Strands, a series of meditations prompted by walking on wild beaches between Blackpool and Liverpool.

She said: “I’ve spent the time since the short-list was announced being delighted just to have been included in such a strong field. I am amazed and delighted to have won.

“The special thing about this prize is that it’s an award connected to a library – a library which connects the people of Manchester to the city’s past.”

Strong shortlist

She also thanked her agent Robin Robertson and the team at publisher Cape, and her colleagues in the Department of English and Manchester Writing School at MMU who had supported her work on Strands.

The prize was judged by authors Kay Eason and Michael Rose, and TV and radio star Stuart Maconie.

The short-list included Simon Armitage, Henrietta Heald, Patricia and Robert Malcolmson, Keith Richards, Alan Shelston, Chris Wadsworth, Bill Williams, Jeanette Winterson and Keith Wrightston.

Strands was a Radio 4 book of the week last summer, read by Jean, recorded on the beaches themselves.

Regional identity

Sarah Hall won the fiction section of the prize for her novel The Beautiful Indifference, beating competition from Joan Bakewell, Tom Benn, AS Byatt, Edward Hogan, Mark Illis, Jackie Kay, Val McDermid, Jane Rogers, Joe Stretch, Emma Jane Unsworth, Paul Wilson and Robert Williams.

The Portico Prize for Literature was established in 1985 by The Portico Library. The prize celebrates the strong regional and literary identity of the North of England with the aim of raising awareness of the diversity of its cultural, literary and historical heritage. The prize is awarded biennially to a work of fiction (including poetry) and a work of non-fiction.

Jean is the fourth academic from MMU to win teh prize since 2000, when John Parkinson-Bailey won for Manchester: An Architectural History. In 2004 Terry Wyke won for his book, Public Sculptures of Greater Manchester, and in 2006 Andrew Biswell took the prize for his biography, The Real Life of Anthony Burgess.

November 27th, 2012 - 09:29am

Monday 11^th July 2011 in the Geoffrey Manton Building, room GM 107-  MMU, Rosamond Street West, Manchester.

July 5th, 2011 - 10:02am