The surprise winner of the best hip-hop artist award at last year's Mobos, Akala is still best known as Ms Dynamite's little brother. His second album is a quantum leap in quality from his patchy debut, encompassing startlingly effective techno beats, reggae and two Siouxsie and the Banshees samples - an unexpected tactic that pays off surprisingly well. Freedom Lasso does not quite live up to its own ambitions, though.
Akala is a little too eager to assert his individuality, sometimes at the expense of his natural style; being unlike the rest is all very well, but not if it means sounding like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Moreover, he shares with his sister a penchant for finger-wagging moralising. Nevertheless, Freedom Lasso is, if not a statement of arrival, then certainly one of tremendous potential.
