Inside Angelina Jolie’s romance with rapper Akala – brother of UK hip hop star who dodged life of crime for success

DRESSED in a chic outfit, with her bright red lips in a glowing smile, Angelina Jolie looks happier and more confident than she has in years.

After her very messy divorce from Brad Pitt, something is finally putting a smile on the 49-year-old actress’s face.

Siblings Ms Dynamite and Akala as kids, back when they were known as Niomi and Kingslee[/caption]

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Akala supporting Angelina at the Maria London premiere[/caption]

Recalling the incident on his 2010 album DoubleThink, he said: “First time I saw knives penetrate flesh, it was meat cleavers to the back of the head.”

And in 2019 he said: “When you experience violence growing up, it changes something inside you.

“There was a period of my life where violence was the logical response to confrontation.

“As hard as I’ve tried, as much as I meditate, do yoga and do martial arts, I don’t feel that’s ever left me.”

But his mum encouraged him to work hard, and he reached the top of his class, taking a maths exam a year early and later getting ten GCSEs.

And he says his “gangster uncles” who were “organised criminals”, often in and out of prison, would reward him after school for his knowledge, including giving him a fiver for saying difficult words such as “Australopithecus”, an early ancestor of humans.

In 2021 Akala said: “They thought it was hilarious that a little kid could pronounce that word.

“They thought me being clever was cool, and that was really, really valuable.”

However, he has also been candid about the challenges he faced growing up as a mixed-race child.

In 2018 he recalled: “I was one of the smartest kids in the class but I was put in a special needs group because of a teacher who thought I was too bright for a working-class brown boy.

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Oscar-winning actress Angelina as singer Maria in her new film[/caption]

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Angelina with Brad at a 2015 premiere before the pair split[/caption]

“Fortunately, my mum was already sending me to Pan-African Society on Saturdays, so I’d learned to be prepared for this kind of discrimination.

“I had this armoury that could pick up on it and nip it in the bud and keep me in school.”

And in a 2021 interview he said: “I’m not saying it’s impossible for you to be successful if you’re born into a poor background in Britain.

“I’m saying the gargantuan effort it requires, and the hurdles you have to jump over, just make it incredibly unlikely.”

Despite scoring in the top one per cent of GCSE results, Akala dropped out of college and didn’t go to university.

But in 2018 he received an honorary doctorate from Brighton University and told graduates there: “I can’t lie, I often envy those of you who do get to go, people like you who are about to remake the world, or at least this country.

“That’s how serious these four years are.

Speaking up about race

“What will you do with the time you spent here and the education you have been privileged to be loaned by the rest of society?”

Not that Akala has missed out on achieving.

His first album, It’s Not A Rumour, was released in 2006 and won him a Mobo award for Best Hip Hop Artist.

Two more albums followed, including collaborating with Ms Dynamite, whose hit songs include It Takes More and Dy-Na-Mi-Tee.

In 2009 he founded The Hip-hop Shakespeare Company, a music theatre production company which combines the works of William Shakespeare with modern-day hip-hop artists, with the support of acting great Sir Ian McKellen.

Akala has since dedicated his career to speaking up about race, class and social issues.

In 2018 he published his best-selling book Natives: Race And Class In The Ruins Of Empire, which detailed his experiences as well as exploring factors that have shaped race and class in Britain.

He criticised officials after it emerged there was no main fire alarm or sprinklers in Grenfell Tower when it caught fire in June 2017, killing 72 people.

He said: “The people who died and lost their homes — this happened . . . because they are poor.

“We are in one of the richest spaces, not just in London but in the world.

I feel a bit down these days. I don’t feel like I’ve been myself for a decade

Angelina Jolie

“Repeated requests were ignored.

“There is no way that rich people would be living in a building without adequate fire safety.

“Everybody I spoke to couldn’t hear alarms, there was no sprinkler system.”

It seems Akala could be just what Angelina needs after a difficult few years following her acrimonious split from Brad, 60.

The former Hollywood golden couple, also parents to Maddox, 23, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 16, got together in 2004 after meeting on the set of spy thriller Mr & Mrs Smith and married in 2014.

She filed for divorce in 2016, accusing him of physically abusing her, including an alleged drunken attack on her and the children on a plane after a holiday in France.

Brad vehemently denied the claims at the time, and after an investigation no charges were made.

Angelina has been single since they split, while Brad has been dating jewellery designer Ines de Ramon since 2022, although divorce proceedings are still ongoing.

Last year Angelina told Vogue magazine that for seven years she had only taken acting roles that didn’t require long shoots, for her children’s sake.

She said: “I guess I’m in transition as a person.

“I feel a bit down these days.

“I don’t feel like I’ve been myself for a decade, in a way, which I don’t want to get into.”

She went on: “We had a lot of healing to do.

“We’re still finding our footing.”

She added that she wanted to “rediscover herself”, and continued: “I’m hoping to change many aspects of my life.”

And with a rumoured new man and her film, she appears to be doing just that.