Andrea - Asher D (2006)

Years after So Solid Crew blew and before he would act as Dushane in Top Boy, Ashley Walters aka Asher D penned this heartfelt, protective rap letter to an abused young woman in his community

Last year I watched the Ashley Walters episode of Louis Theroux Interviews Series 2 on BBC iPlayer. I was pleasantly surprised to find it so candid. Walters takes the viewer through his strict life routine, admits to battling daily demons and opens up about being a recluse. We meet his wife and mum, and see him squirm with discomfort but also laugh joyfully. It’s becoming a cliche to positively review television programmes for their showcasing of male vulnerability, but the episode struck me as exactly that, and better off for it.

I interviewed Walters a few years ago to write an oral history of the much-loved Netflix show Top Boy for Dazed, in which he played one of the main characters, Dushane. It was a strange set-up: I was instructed to sit in an empty, immaculate room on the top floor of a hotel in Holborn, central London, as members of the cast — including Michael Ward, Little Simz and Kano — passed through. I had no more than 20 minutes with each of them. When Walters came in and sat down I became nervous and starstruck, unsure how to introduce myself.

“I’ve been a fan since the start,” I blurted out, without thinking.

“Well it’s great to chat to someone who knows the show so well then,” he replied, grinning politely, glancing at his assistant in the far corner of the room.

I paused, dying internally to clarify what I meant, deciding to keep my mouth shut and crack on with the interview. It was the proper thing to do, but I still kick myself for not signalling a deeper appreciation of his journey.

Because I didn’t mean that I’d been a fan of Top Boy since it started. Frankly, I hadn’t, having first caught the show several years after it first aired in 2011.

I meant that I’d been a fan of So Solid Crew since I saw them perform 21 Seconds on Top of the Pops as a 10-year-old in 2001. I’d been a fan of Ashley Walters as an actor since I watched Bullet Boy (2004) on my friend’s VHS player when I was 14. And I’d been a fan of Asher D, the solo artist, since discovering the best song on his debut album, In Memory Of The Street Fighter (2006): Andrea.

Over the type of atmospheric, soulful UK hip-hop beat that was commonplace in the mid-2000s, Walters raps verses addressed to a young woman in his community who has been sexually abused by an older man. He grapples with offering kindness and support to her whilst feeling responsible for avenging what has happened.

Although Walters is a trained dramatist and hip-hop often deals in fiction, I’d be surprised if Andrea wasn’t at least loosely based on a real person. The lyrics possess an honest rawness; the final verse finishes by announcing that the financial proceeds from the song will go to its subject.

Andrea belongs to a lineage of male rappers dedicating songs to names of young women who have been wronged by telling pained stories about their ordeals. They are obviously different, but when I was younger I always equated Walters’ attempt at this genre with Tupac’s Brenda’s Got A Baby (1991). In more recent years, here in London there’s also been Dave’s Lesley (2019) and Potter Payper’s Money Or Victims? [Kayla’s Story] (2023).

For the rest of the handful of minutes we spent together in the hotel room when I interviewed him, I found Walters to be friendly but media-trained and reserved. I could rationalise why this was the case, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit disappointed. I failed to access the sort of emotional honesty I’d long listened to in my headphones via Andrea or watched many times on screen in Bullet Boy.

Which I guess is why I was then so taken by his willingness to be open on Louis Theroux. Watching it made up for my missed opportunity, and reminded me to put Andrea back in my rotation, where it has remained ever since.

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