That’s me being amazed by the glory of the UNKILLABLE THUNDERCHRIST print, a thing of gargantuan beauty that measures a whopping 10″ square, comes with a lovely matte finish that stops light reflecting off it meaning you can enjoy it from all angles even in extreme lighting conditions, and can be ordered from my shop right now for the incredibly low price of ten (10) english pounds, which is $15 (fifteen) in Americana. AMAZING! This will go in the post tomorrow, along with the UNKILLABLE THUNDERCHRIST CDs, which I had hoped would go out while I was in the USA, but did not, for reasons far too boring to go into here. Suffice to say it will be worth the wait and I got the candies – as my dear Yankee chums call them – in.

YES! Hold tight for the big photo stuffed blog depicting the final third of my US adventures, along with the artistic spoils of said excursion, like those songs and that video I shot with Issue. Here’s a nice picture of us at the video shoot. Note the fitting sign above our lovely heeds.

Yeah, we were swagging hard. And speaking of the Bay, I just got an email from someone at Billboard, who thinks I run Lil B’s record label.

How weird is that? It reaises an intesrting and pretty amazing point though: Lil B described this record as a classical album, despite it being performed entirely on synths and sounding more like New Age relaxation music, and for that reason alone, it’s appearing the Billboard classical music charts this week. Absolutely amazing reality creation from the Basedgod there. I raise all of my hats, including this one, which is probably the illest hat in the Uk since I bought it back.

Yes, yes, yes and YES. That hat is almost as good as Andy Falkous from Future of The Left‘s open letter to the guy at Pitchfork who gave his album a bad, and factually inaccurate review.

…On ‘robocop 4 – fuck off robocop’ we will simply have to agree to disagree. However, if it is truly amongst the worst songs of the year then I am a giant bat and Pitchfork a cave into which I will shit golden effigies of your face.

Seriously, go read it right now, it is amazing, and probably the best music writing I’ve read since something Swells did in 96. Incidentally, I once described Andy Falkous in print as looking exactly like Steven Wells in my 5 star review of the first Mclusky album, which is probably why I got a thank you on their second album. See, my music journalism career wasn’t all Wu-Wear and Acid.

“As for the cover, well, there’s a penguin on it you stupid cunt.”

Hey! Speaking of clever politically aware musicians, here’s a lovely photo of my homie Time, with whom I made the modern classics Full Metal Alchemist and Too Sweet To Be Sour, all suited and booted and smiling next to the good Dr Noam Chomsky, who liked one of his articles (he writes articles on politrickery and whatnot as well as the dystopia-rapping) so much he invited him to come and speak with him the other week.

To that, I will raise a bowl of strawberries and a bottle of water. CHEERS!

Oh, finally, I got the following letter from a new listener:

I replied by informing William that the song was pretty self explanatory, then suggesting he read the lyrics on my website, as sometimes people can’t understand what I’m saying cos I say it so fast. It later dawned on me, hoever, that as a new listener, William might not have the level of context that say, I do, and people who’ve been with me since Living In The Future or even earlier have. See, William, I was, as the song says, always broke, from birth in fact. As recently as this song I was scrabbling down the back of the sofa for pennies when the electric went. Brokeness, once one is past the crawling stage anyway, is as much a mental trap as anything, and I wrote the song as a kind of magical sigil, designed to work continuously on a subconscious level, in order  that its joyous existence in the world would help bring material wealth in my direction, so that I might live a free, and less stressful life, and keep my woman in a manner more desserving of a creature so beautiful as she.

Thusfar it’s been working pretty well. I am about three times as well off monetarily as I was when I wrote it. True story! The solid gold house is not yet in my possession, and “some dope film” has yet to use the song, but I believe it to be close. I had an email from my publisher just the other day saying he’d had a number of LA based music supervisors in touch extolling my virtues. Just look at LiL B and his classical album. We are the architects of our destiny. And my destiny has a libary full of so many comics I’ll need a lader just to get to the S section in it.

Amen.

— Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

I’d packed my bag and was just about to hop in the cab to LAX when I realised I hadn’t recorded a VLOG for you yet. GADZOOKES! Luckily I had my wife’s Xperia that Fat Tony’s friend’s recently passed auntie saved the other day, so I recorded a quick bit of Californian vloggage for y’all, co-starring my dear friend and host Wade Xavier Crescent… and the most amazing soes the world has ever seen. They are literally the first item of clothing I have ever come across that i would gladly do an advert for, because they are so incredibly FLY. And superheroic. MY GOD THOSE THINGS!

Check back here tomorrow for a great big photo packed blog covering the final third of my US adventure, then get ready for an onslaught of video-based THUNDERCHRISTIANTY.

PAX!

— Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

It was fifteen minutes into the domestic flight from San Francisco to LA that I remembered some kids gave me some weed and I’d put it in my bag and forgotten about it. I decided not to worry. What’s the point? I drew some comics and investigated the magazines. It was only a short flight.

So short in fact, I didn’t even get to read all of the crazy in fight shopping magazine, that sells ancient-ass things like Vinyl To CD converters for $400, skeleton gnomes and amazing creations like “The Travellers Bed Bug Thwarting Sleeping Cocoon”, yours for a mere $79.99. It took longer to get out of the airport than it did to fly there. LA has little in the way of public transportation, so I got the “Shuttle” which is in fact a six seater taxi driven by a sardonic cabbie that takes multiple humans to their multiple destinations for a mere $25 each. Naturally I was last, which was excellent as I got a guided tour around the posher bits of LA, along with the most hilly and treacherous, narrated by a nice Jewish lady from Brooklyn, who informed me she could tell from looking at me that I was evidently a great musician, that I had a good energy, and that it is important to drive through cute areas as often as possible. “If your areas are cute, your life is better,” she philosiphised, enthusiastically.

Eventually I was alone with the sardonic cabbie, who proceeded to tell me his life story, which involved a lot of child support payments and two years in jail waiting to be deported. Eventually he was not deported, but if he ever leaves the country he will not be allowed back in, and now resides “in a big hot prison forever, spending all my money on that fucking bitch.”

He dropped me off outside Wade’s place in Hollywood, where I was greeted by a very friendly and excited concierge, who had a similar life story, but a sunnier outlook on it. “Shit, I’m just happy to be here,” he said. “Your buddy Wade is great people. It’s exciting to see him doing his thing, you know? They have amazing parties here. Amazing girls. Just to be around that gives me hope, now I’m back in the game. It’s a blessing, you know?”

Wade met me at the door of his vast and luxurious penthouse apartment wearing a baseball cap and a very serious tan, both signs of his thorough and enthusiastic Americanization. He made us meatballs and spinach, because he is still a proud half Swede, and filled me in on what he’s been doing in the past 10 months, since he got his Visa. Mostly he’s been running a successful and super trendy new nightclub, DJing, acquiring a tan, dating a parade of aspirational females, and getting into baseball caps.

I woke up to a somewhat homerian and inspirational 360% panoramic view of Los Angeles. Then Mocky came and picked me up, and took me on a tour of his new stomping ground. A former Berlin resident and underground scene captain along with Chilly Gonazles and Taylor Savy, Mocky recenty spawned, and relocated with his young family to the Golden Coast, for which he is its single most enthusiastic proponenrt. Mocky loves LA, he loves his new life in LA, and he was generous enough to share some of that with the visiting Don.

After a few entirely lovely hours spent munching on Tacos, sightseeing, smoking medical, and listening to the next Mocky LP – dystopian futuretronica spliced with a big wedge of TurboGFunk and Saskamodie‘s lush melodies and instrumentation – we sat around Mocky’s kitchen table to write a song. Less than an hour later, we had written a song. BAM!

It’s a Californian joy anthem, obviously. Lyrically it concerns my recent CA adventures, and the existential nature of putting oneself in the postion to experience Adventure. Mocky recorded me singing it over his FM radio instrumental into his phone, in the futuristic fashion. We’re going to record it properly either tonight or tomorrow.

That night Wade took me on a tour of some of his hangouts, including the notorious Chateou Marmont, a beautiful and opulent castle upon the hill, that was populated only with chain smoking young ladies, as the men had all fled like rats when the electricity briefly went an hour before our arrival. A tall blonde female, excited by my similarly bleached mane insisted on having her photo taken with me. This happens quite a lot here. The photo thing and the tall thing. God knows what they feed them.

After that went went to Wade’s joint, Smoke And Mirrors, which is a very beautiful and classy place with an atmosphere enforcing low ceiling and a goddamn PIANO. I sipped on bourbon and met all manner of interesting mofos, including some super safe anglo japanese half brothers, one of whom turned out to be local producer Rex Kudo, who shared a pair of expertly constructed medical sticks with the interloping british rap star, creating a nice trippy level of brain fluidity with which the young Don wrote some excellent raps in his wife’s Sony Xperia.

Cultural Differences Observation #257: American yoghourt is upside down.

Yesterday Wade took me down Melrose, where I copped some very fly garms, and observed a wealth of cultural glory, like that Wild Things graffiti above, and this My Little Pony gallery.

Wade and I shared a milkshake. “There’s nothing gay about two grown men sharing a milkshake is there?” enquired Wade. ”No, it’s maddeningly attractive,” said Twitter.

Here’s Wade doing some work. Wade’s work outside the cub seems to involve wandering around in a wifebeater making excitable noises into a telephone and occasionally looking contemplative.

When the dark drew in we went for a very delicious and fulfilling Mexican (PINCHES TACOS!), then he DJed at his club and I danced in the DJ booth and wrote about three songs worth of raps. It was Model Night, wherein by some queer magic a disproportionate mass of attractive young womenfolk fill the place to capacity and throw themselves around excitedly to Wade’s Kim Carnes and Snoop Dogg and James Brown records, while the roughly five menfolk that managed to get past security attempt to ply them with buckets of champagne.

Tonight I am told will be “more avante garde… some dudes in wigs and girls on rollerskates.”

I am going to go see the homies Fat Tony and Tom Crus first, as Mr Tony just hot me on G Chat and invited me to this shindig they’re playing tonight at the Broadway Bar. I will  wear my fly new hat. Look at my fly new hat! It is so choice. I also found the flyest shoes I have ever seen today. I am worried to take them back to London as everyone that sees them will commit immediate suicide out of sheer envy. But they are too beautiful to leave here, damnit.

Oh yeah, Wade and I constructed a desk this afternoon, like we used to back when we lived together and got all our stuff from the local Ikea… apart from the plants which we stole from rich neighbours under the dead of night. Such a manly feeling! Making a desk that is. Plant stealing was very fun and exciting though. We almost got caught one time. Oh god! One time we stole a stone owl, and put it on a plinth in the middle of the garden, then one day we woke up and it had make up on. We never did find out what the hell that was about, but we took it as a bad omen, and didn’t linger much longer in that place. It was far too nice for our hedonistic young selves. The last song on Unkillable Thunderchrist is about that period of my life. I will dedicate it to our neighbours, who were surprisingly tolerant and forgiving.

— Friday, May 25th, 2012

I am sat on a nice leather seat in the luxurious and futuristic confines of the San Francisco International airport, about to fly to LA. I am tired, hungover, and full of a great joy and wonder and thankfulness. I have had a amazing 5 days here in San Fran. I knew nothing in the way of detail about this trip, had no hotels booked, no studio booked, no dates or times or film crew… I just knew I was going to, somehow, make a record and a video with Issue, Spread Joy, and have some experiences… and that’s exactly what happened – in a fashion bigger, better and greater than even I had dared hope.

Thank you SO MUCH to all the wonderful people who showed me such a joyous and excellent time and helped me have some of my greatest adventures.

(I tell you about some of them when I get a bit of time. Like the one about saving a girl’s life when she collapsed during the eclipse.)

That pic up there was taken at Isoptope comics today, by the way, where Issue and I were filming the WORLD’S FINEST video, and doing an interview. I have a snapback tan line. Life is ace.

Issue tweeted these just now, which confirms that my Joy Mission is working, and that is a beautiful thing.

Amen.

Here’s some photos from the past few days adventures.

— Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

BOOM! Have you some footage of me and Issue during our rather epic 13 hours session in Fremont’s legendary STREET SYMPHONY studios yesterday, with the ultra G Deegan Mack Adams!

It was an amazing time. We were working on our collaborative LP, World’s Finest. We made six songs! Six very ace, inspirational, trippy, weird, and joyous songs. It was an honour and a provedle to spend time and create great art with the young enigma ISSUE, who kept his mask on the whole time and writes verses in the time it was taking me to discuss the approach to the song… and it was a joy to work with Deegan, because as a production minded rap engineer he does exactly the same sort of shit with vocals and the song’s beat I would… but better. And for the first time in a very long time, all I had to do was write my raps and perform them in the booth.

I was also blessed to talk with E-40 on the phone, who apologies for not being able to make it down to the studio and was very flipping nice. “Enjoy it, and make every second in there count,” he said, wisely.

I will write more tomorrow, but right now i gott run and get the BART back to Frisco to take part in this crazy wacky races shit that’s going on today.

PEACE!

— Sunday, May 20th, 2012

Well, I did it. 24 hours after leaving London following 2 hours sleep and the release of Unkillable Thunderchrist I was settling into my hotel on Columbus Avenue feeling like a cotdurned CHAMPION. What a day I’d had! Ten hour on a plane sat between two female jetsetters, discussing pop up shops and racing and watching Game Of Thrones. Two hours queuing at immigration, ater which I was met at the airport reception by a wonderful human called Andrew, AKA The Dreadlocked Predator, who proceeded to drive me around all day showing me the sighs of the beautiful BAY, because he loves my music (ever since Living In The Future!) and is a TURBO G.

He also took me to In N Out Burger, which was a near religious experience. I got the off-menu ANIMAL STYLE Double Double burger with ANIMAL STYLE fries, which means loads of copped up onions and cheese and special sauce. AMAZING. They put the fries out back from REAL POTATOES, that place is amazing. You get slices of  lemon in your unlimited refill soda. GODDAMN Americans do fast food amazingly.

Today I am gonna wander around and look for advnture, and tomorrow I am gonna be recording with Issue ALL DAY LONG… whihc is very exciting. So fold tight. And if you haven’t yet, go cop that UNKILLABLE THUNDERCHRIST! Sonic Shocks just dropped a review, saying nice shit like:

“Akira The Don may be one of the most prolific hip-hop artists going in this internet age… right from the offset we remember why Akira can call himself The Don, as he raps with a feeling of social consciousness… This is nicely settled within the first three tracks of D.R.E.A.M (Debt Rules Everything Around Me) and the brilliantly sampled Lemmings and Weird And Creepy (sampling Fox News anchor Shepard Smith’s reaction to Mitt Romney’s speech after Newt Gingrich dropped out of the Republican Candidate race)… Envy brings a lot of emotion throughout her appearances: anger on Fuck You Pay Me and sadness on the haunting Give Me Something, while Time crafts a fitting tribute with Akira to MCA on Too Sweet To Be Sour.

If you don’t know Akira this is a good starting point, hell the man manages to do a cover of THAT Beiber song and make it listenable.”

— Friday, May 18th, 2012