BOOYA! It seems I have turned up in a couple of end of year polls. Both at number 9. Weird.

CMU
FAVOURITE ALBUM OF 2006 #9: Akira The Don – When We Were Young (Something In
Construction)
I can say for certain that I first came across Akira The Don via Mr Eddy
Temple Morris, who played the brilliant single ‘Clones’ on his Xfm radio
show aeons ago. From there I stumbled on the now somewhat legendary Akira
The Don website, where I would regularly access his always good mixes, often
spot on rantings and occasional bootlegs, while keeping an eye (well, ear
really) on the slowly growing catalogue of original Akira tracks. With talk
of a deal with US mainstream hip hop giants Interscope around about this
time last year, I started to get rather excited about the prospect of a full
length Akira The Don album, and a major label funded marketing campaign that
would get Akira’s brand of hip hop to the masses, certainly here and
possibly across the Atlantic too. And with the right marketing campaign
Akira should be huge, because he makes the kind of hip hop that has real
mainstream potential (his tunes are always infectious, invariably
dance-able, and more often than not a lot of fun), but with a lyrical
attitude (and subject matter) that would ensure credibility (OK, on tracks
like ‘Thanks For All The AIDS’ the latter might hinder the former, but in
the main that’s not the case). But alas, talk of a major label deal fell by
the way side, though the good news was that release plans for the debut
album went ahead anyway, and so we here at CMU were finally able to get our
hands on the debut Akira The Don album. And boy what an album. Bringing
together some of the tracks we’d sampled on the aforementioned website over
the last eighteen months, but with a number of brand new tracks that are
really special too, this is exactly the kind of album that the hip hop genre
needs – and, to be honest, if anything the US scene more so than ours. Of
course, the independent release, without a major label budget, meant that
despite the mainstream potential, this album is yet to enjoy mainstream
attention. That said, with the combined influence of the album, his live
shows, and the aforementioned website, this is a man with a growing fan
base, and a very dedicated fan base at that, so it wouldn’t surprise me if
the mainstream don’t latch on here, eventually, through good old fashioned
word of mouth rather than Universal’s hip hop budget. Frankly, the
mainstream are missing out until they do so. We caught up with Akira just as
the album was being released a couple of months back, and if you missed the
interview, check it out here and get yourself converted to the Don of UK hip
hop.

Read our interview with Akira The Don at:
http://www.thebeatsbar.co.uk/albumsoftheyear

Playlouder
ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2006: #9
When We Were Young
Akira the Don

Nobody knew quite what to make of Akira the Don, and they still don’t. While the focus seemed to be on the David and Goliath relationship the boy Adam had with the all-powerful Interscope, many took their eyes off the ball and forgot to give the music the attention it deserved. Idiosyncratic, honest, funny and occasionally tragic, ‘When We Were Young’ vividly mirrored the life of an artist, and was so real you could almost grab it.

Should you wish to, you can vote for the aforementioned opus in PlayLouder’s reader’s poll here.

— Wednesday, December 20th, 2006