Long identified as the likeliest of So Solid Crew to make it, until his several-month incarceration at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in 2002 for firearms offences, rapper/MC/actor and Grange Hill veteran Asher D (real name Ashley Walters, poor sod) has ironically become the spokesman for the British Home Office’s ‘Disarm’ campaign. His undeniably massive Crew were constantly accused of glamorising thug-life violence and gun crime, and a nasty atmosphere always tended to accompany their following, with stabbing and shootings not unheard-of at their gigs.
It’s evident, though, that Ash’s stint in the slammer has provoked much soul-searching in the 20-year-old father of two, and his debut solo opus Street Sibling is awash with cautionary advice to the ghetto ‘yoof’, preaching personal responsibility and appearing to urge the use of violence only in moderation and as a last resort, as on ‘Locked’: ‘You niggers are pussies thinkin’ you can step on my pedestal/ You brothers fink you can knock me off the spot, I ain’t lettin’ you. Cut you up nice like a vegetable/I peel you, scorch you, to the point where you really will think I did kill you/Will you ever learn? You’re a pussy, I will do/ I’m a Solid soldier sonny, don’t say I never told you.’
Throughout, Ash dismisses his adversaries and enemies as ‘pussies’ and
‘faggots’, while still finding time for some hilarious egotistical chest-beating on the funked-up ‘Give It Up’, a 50 Cent-styled ode to Ash’s prowess with the laydeez, with vague P-Funk and Grandmaster Flash nuances. It’s not revolutionary or groundbreaking stuff by garage standards, but it’s an impressive enough statement of intent from potentially Peckham’s finest export since the family Trotter.