Andrew Ashong: The Open Fund for Music Creators
Sound scientist, music archivist and song singer, Andrew Ashong is guided by the immersive and transformative registers of recorded music. A Londoner by way of Ghana, the free-spirited Ashong spent years creating mixtapes, journeying through records and growing his musical encyclopaedia. By his early teens he was DJing, deepening his musical knowledge and understanding; eventually building an expansive home-studio and moving to the pulse of his creative inspiration. Cultivating a world of his own with a taste for polyrhythms, idiosyncratic basslines, modal chord progressions, and the ever-expanding palette of influences from Labi Siffre and Richie Havens, to War and Jorge Ben.
After years of exploration, Ashong’s music was coaxed out of the studio by friend, DJ and Producer Theo Parrish, which led to the release of 2012’s underground hit ‘Flowers’. Played on dancefloors around the world, it went on to win ‘Track of the Year’ at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards. The ‘Special’ EP followed on Ashong’s own Which Way label, weaving hazy psychedelic soundscapes and jazzy hues with funk inflections and wistful words. Ashong’s versatility has produced a number of noteworthy features and collaborations ranging from Nightmares On Wax to Tony Allen and Swindle. His live performances are a reflection of sonic curiosity, dreamy sentiments and jazz sensibilities, always already reimagining songs whilst referencing diverse tastes, both contemporary and antiquated. From Bangkok to Brooklyn, Croatia to CapeTown, sharing stages with artists, from Lauryn Hill to Little Dragon, Ashong has humbly offered up his compelling take on music for the soul.