Similar Artists

Ashley Thomas also known as Bashy is a British hip-hop/grime. He rose to prominence in 2007 after the release of his controversial track Black Boys. He was the assistant music supervisor for the film Adulthood for which he also recorded the theme track entitled Kidulthood to Adulthood.

During the release of one of his mixtapes he was still a struggling independent musician, so applied the Royal Mail to become a Postman. He worked there for a year to save money then left to pursue his music career full time. The money he saved was soon spent as music career did not take off as planned & he began living off his over draft then started doing various different things in order to survive. It was during this time he decided to become a Bus Driver. He drove the 114, 183 & 292. He has been very vocal about his being a bus driver in order to promote to young people that working is cool. This contrasts with Bashy's own reports that, when music wasn't paying the bills, he "picked a little q up", in a fraudulent reference to selling drugs.

In 2007 he released the song ‘Black Boys’. It was this track that propelled Bashy into the nation's consciousness, catching the imagination of a country suffering from many incidents of violence amongst its inner-city youth. With frequent reports of shootings and stabbings on news bulletins, and with the media continually focusing on the lack of role models in certain communities, he felt that the nation’s inner city youth needed a reminder that they had a number of positive figureheads they could look to. His debut single was surrounded by controversy, as some people were calling the track racist. This prompted the governing body OFCOM to investigate. Rumours soon started to circulate that the track had been banned from T.V. Certain sections of the black community were outraged; groups were set up on the social networking site Facebook in order to fight the ban. Racist videos were put up as responses to the track on Youtube. Men dressed as Ku Klux Klan members would hurl abuse towards black people with Black Boys playing in the background. This then prompted people of all races to get behind and support Bashy, in a united stand against racism. It was off the back of this that Bashy was invited to perform at the Love Music Hate Racism Rally in 2008 at Victoria Park, to a crowd of 100,000. He was asked to take the main stage alongside Damon Albarn. Bashy persuaded some of the country's brightest stars to come together, at a point when the scene was gripped by a culture of division, to share their views on the subject. Nolay, Skinnyman, Ty, Big Narstie, Tinie Tempah, Wretch 32, Chipmunk, Swiss, J2k, Skepta, Sincere, Akala and Scorcher featured on the track.

Bashy is similar to JR is terms of their motive of music. They both talk about positivity and problems in everyday lives in their lyrics. They also both came from a rough area and are trying to become mainstream artists.