After last year's MOBO Award for best UK Hip-Hop act, the self-proclaimed 'black Shakespeare' could have been forgiven for coming back with a more commercial record than his debut.

Instead his second album Freedom Lasso, released on his own Illa State record label, is a darker and even less commercial follow up. Akala isn't interested in the 'bling' lifestyle that dominates much of the Hip-Hop being mass produced across the Atlantic, this is an album that feels real, this is an album that the UK can relate to.

There are no introductions or interludes, no guest appearances, just 10 tracks and 40 minutes of uninterrupted Akala. It’s hard hitting and straight to the point and it feels a better album for it.

Electro Livin’ is the perfect album opener, a menacing anthem in waiting which lays to waste the UK’s obsessions with pointless celebrities whilst the real issues are ignored: “These wags with their fags and Christian Dior bags, shagged and they brag pose for lad’s mags, it is sad, we are sad for things we cannot have, but we are not sad for Baghdad.” There’s a guilty element of truth to much of the lyrics.

Akala is best known for his track Shakespeare, from his first album It’s Not A Rumour, with it’s sample of the track Loneliness by dance act Tomcraft, this time round though inspiration is taken from some unusual places with two samples taken from Siouxsie & The Banshees and another from The Cure. There’s no way that Akala can be accused of going for the tried and tested route.

Freedom Lasso is a hybrid of rap, rock and electro and when it works it works brilliantly such as the frenzied electronica of Bit by Bit and the hard hitting Where I’m From. The latter is a lyrical rampage about his youth, the current state of the nation and an attack on the fakeness of the US Hip-Hop scene over a perfectly placed sample of Spellbound by Siouxsie & The Banshees.