HHW: What role did making music play in all of this? Did you start to make it as a catharsis?
Ash: Not at first, but eventually, yes. When we was going through it, I wasn’t thinking about music. I always thought I was too young. I was thinking, “I can’t wait to be grown.” I wasn’t thinking, “I can’t wait until I blow up.” Only time I started writing was when the problems started fading because I had more time to write and sit to myself and gather my thoughts and write a song. I’d been freestyling since elementary school though, that’s when I found out I was kind of good. I used to be rapping against older students all the time and just never lost. I built a rap battle mentality, so I never wrote songs. But when I was 16, I was in Jacksonville with my uncle. He was doing music, but he was still in the streets. We was up in his room listening to his songs and I asked when he was gonna let me get on something. He told me if I wanted to get down, I had to write something, I couldn’t just go in and freestyle everything. Seeing how he structured songs and put them together made me want to start writing. Writing actually helped me with my anger. So I’ve been doing that ever since.
HHW: When did you decide to start taking rapping more seriously?
Ash: When I moved to the north side of Jacksonville I hooked up with my godbrother’s group called RSMG. I actually clicked with them from helping his cousin in a fight. They all happened to rap too, but they had access to a studio. I started going with them to record. The quality wasn’t the best, but I was just excited to hear myself. We found an engineer who could make us sound better though. From there we recorded four songs and pressed up some CDs. We went out to sell them and we made $365 the first night. We literally just ran up on people in their cars and asked them to listen. We told them if they liked it they could buy it. If they didn’t, they could just throw it on the ground. Really, I think we told some of them they could just keep it if they wanted. But, everybody we approached wanted to pay us. That’s what showed me that we really had something and that you could make money doing this if you go out and hustle.
HHW: You’ve built a big following on Soundcloud and you’ve done it organically. How did you do this?
Ash: It’s weird. When I first got on Soundcloud, my songs weren’t doing nothing. But then I started freestyling on Instagram to build anticipation for what I was about to drop. I know everybody raps on Instagram, but for some reason people really took to what I was doing. When I saw the feedback I was getting, I figured I might as well drop what I was spitting on Instagram on Soundcloud as real songs. When I did that, people just started sharing my music all over the place. I didn’t really have a support system, but now I get thousands of new fans everyday. I didn’t pay for any views and I don’t even have a promotional team.
HHW: What is it about your music that you think makes people take to it so fast?
Ash: I try to keep my music as realistic as possible. It’s always going to be direct and right at you. It will always help whoever listens. Good vibes only. I want to give you a good sound and a good message. I want to come through and be the artist who can show affection to females and be a real dude at the same time. All of my music isn’t R&B or melodic though. That’s why I make songs with just bars, to let people know I can do Hip-Hop, I’m just versatile. I’m not the person thinking “kill, kill, kill, f*ck him, f*ck her.” I can’t dumb down to please others. There is a crowd for everyone. So I can’t change my reality to get a buzz off saying something I don’t believe in. I want to feel my music too. I want to be proud of my work. I don’t want to put out songs talking about the stereotypical things I’m expected to. I’m not trying to be looked at as the good guy in Hip-Hop either, because I’m not that. I just don’t push the agenda of negativity. I’m just keeping it real and letting people pull the positivity out of it.
