Asher D

Dogged by controversy throughout his early career, U.K. rapper Asher D left his turbulent So Solid Crew period behind to establish himself independently as a solo artist while also emerging as one of the most promising young talents on the British film scene. Born Ashley Walters in Peckham, South London in 1982, he enrolled at the renowned Sylvia Young Theatre School at the age of seven and performed in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and Grange Hill before turning his focus to MC skills that he honed on the pirate radio station Supreme FM. Joining the tabloid-baiting garage collective So Solid Crew in 1998, he contributed to their chart-topping single “21 Seconds” and their multi-platinum album They Don't Know, released in 2001; that same year, however, he faced charges of handgun possession after an altercation with a traffic warden and received an 18-month prison sentence. After his release and the group’s voluntary hiatus, he launched a solo recording career that included the albums Street Sibling in 2004, In Memory of the Street Fighter in 2006, The Appletiser in 2007, and Ashley Walters in 2009, along with the mixtape Cure for Cancer, all of which earned strong critical praise yet limited commercial success. A return to acting proved far more rewarding: following a role in 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’, he secured lead parts in the British urban films Bullet Boy and Life and Lyrics, and appeared in the horror film WaZ, the children’s fantasy Stormbreaker, and the BBC1 sci-fi drama Outcasts.