Ashley Walters - EYID Ambassador

by Peter Beckett

On shaking hands with Ashley Walters - former chart-topping MC with the So Solid Crew, star of numerous films and ambassador for the European year of intercultural dialogue - I committed a cardinal sin when meeting someone you've seen on TV: I told him he was much shorter in person. 'Yeah', he said, 'people always say that'.

A talented 26-year-old actor, rapper and producer, Walters went to weekend classes at the prestigious Sylvia Young acting school from the age of seven. That led to a part in Grange Hill - something he's a little embarrassed about now - and another on The Bill. But Ashley was also involved in urban music, and it was as an MC that he first rose to prominence.

He had been MCing to garage music on Supreme FM, a South London based pirate radio station, as a soloist before becoming a member of the So Solid Crew, a 35 strong team whose single '21 Seconds' reached number one in the charts in April 2001. The group came from humble beginnings on South London's pirate radio scene - the breeding ground for many successful urban artists.

'You can just go on pirate radio and play what you want because they're illegal. Most people would just go on and push their own music. The music we were making wasn't popular as far as the record labels were concerned. We made it popular by playing it, like, 50 times a day on our own station. It captured South London, and once that many people were on it, the rest of the country followed suit.'

Despite their success, the crew were criticised by many for lyrics that depict violence.

'You can look at it two ways' says Ashley, 'you can see it as glamorising violence and adding to a problem, but a lot of kids involved in street crime have come off the street to go into the studio. I spoke to someone the other day, who had overheard someone else say they were going to shoot someone, but then they said "I'm gonna go to the studio and write about it instead".

'We've created another industry that people get into and people like. If people wanna complain about the lyrics, they can't watch the news either. All the news does is report what they see, so why can't artists do that too?'

The So Solid buzz didn't last long. Keeping that many band members happy was a problem given that six or seven were far more prominent than the rest, and resentment built up within the group. Violent incidents at their shows meant promoters were increasingly reluctant to book them, and shortly after 21 Seconds reached the top of the charts Ashley was arrested for possession of a firearm. He got 18 months, and came out a changed man.

'I went in there, realised what I did wrong, came out, and vowed that I'd never do it again' he says, 'but then again I had something to lose. People who've never known their parents and been in foster homes and don't have a girlfriend won't worry about being in prison'.

He also has strong views on why some young people choose to carry weapons - the risk of not carrying one can sometimes seem greater than the risk of carrying one.

'A large proportion of what you see on TV about young people is negative. When I got caught with a firearm I only had it because I was scared, and I thought that because I saw all this violence on the news and being a bestselling artist makes you a target round here. We need to be out in the youth clubs talking to the kids, and putting money into things that will turn them away from violence.'

This, he says, is why he accepted an invitation to be involved in the year of intercultural dialogue - arguing that through dialogue we can break down barriers in society which prevent people understanding each other. He is especially keen that people think beyond traditional black stereotypes.

'As soon as I say to anyone "I've got three kids", the first thing people ask is "are they all with the same mum?"...straight away they expect me to have three different kids with three different women. And the fact that I'm so close to my kids also surprises people.'

It is preconceived idea like this that Ashley wants to dispel in his role as an ambassador for intercultural dialogue. 'We have a very multicultural society, that's one of the great things about the UK, but there's no dialogue. It's hard for people, especially from different cultures and different backgrounds. In order to understand each other we need to break down those barriers.'

Many of his acting roles since coming out of prison have reflected this. Bullet Boy, for instance is a powerful film depicting life on a poor council estate - so powerful that it won him an award for 'best newcomer' at the British Independent Film Awards, and today it is used in schools to teach kids about the negative effects of carrying weapons. He is also, among other things, the emergent star of the BBC series Hustle, and has worked with US superstar rapper 50 Cent on his film Get Rich or Die Tryin'.

His agency, AD82, aims to nurture British talent, and its books are brimming with it. It has a tiny office in Borough where he and his manager are based. At the moment he is working with, among others, Akemnji Ndifornyen (see picture), a promising young actor who has an impressive portfolio across stage and screen; and Swindle, a dubstep producer (dubstep being a genre of music whose roots are in the UK garage scene So Solid rose to fame on) who has worked with some of the hottest MCs in the business.

He gets animated very quickly when talking about them and his passion for their success is clear. This seems to be his way of giving back to society - giving young talent a clear role model so that they may become role models themselves. And, judging by AD82's portfolio of talent, it seems to be working.

© Peter Beckett. All views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to the European Commission.