Derrick N Ashong & Soulfège Official Bio

If you find that your musical and cultural diet has felt a little bland lately, and have been wondering where you might find fresh sounds and ideas that surpass in sum and substance the increasingly monotone world of urban music today, well search no more—welcome to the eclectic and compelling world of Derrick N. Ashong & Soulfège!  To call these artists merely a musical group is clearly reductionist and an enormous understatement. Their reach and breadth is so much more.  Yet, they are a band of very creative and talented musicians from a diverse variety of impressive backgrounds, and they have brought together a festive amalgam of musical styles, which is amply demonstrated on their new CD release, AFropolitan. 

"Here are musicians, poised with a positive vibe and with lyrics so uplifting that you actually believe . . . a new world mood may emerge from the street and the Net, somehow defying the odds—a spirit of promise and hope and harmony, a spirit that denies dissonance. Soulfège lets us dream such sweet dreams, in vibrant colors."—VanityFair.com

Derrick N. Ashong & Soulfège embody the pluralistic vision of a new generation of music makers and socially conscious activists.  Leader and co-founder Derrick N. Ashong, a.k.a. DNA, recently dubbed “a YouTube phenom” by the New York Times, was the host of The Derrick Ashong Experience on Oprah radio and is a Ghana-born, Oprah-endorsed Harvard graduate.  He originally formed Soulfège with college choir mate Jonathan M. Gramling.  Subsequently they created Take Back the Mic™, a movement to put meaning back into today's music and to challenge a new generation of youth to find their own voice and take on roles of leadership in society.  More recently, as host of Al-Jazeera English’s cutting-edge show, The Stream, Ashong has scooped some of the biggest social change stories in the world today, from stories tweeted live from the ground in the Arab Spring, to Occupy Wall Street and its global echoes.

"Its [Soulfège’s] members realized they had the platform to reach ears not only with their music—a fusion of thumping African music and rhythms, sweet reggae breezes, funk, and hip-hop—but also with their message."

—The Boston Globe

With the advent of 2012 events have been moving at a furious pace for Ashong and Soulfège.  Among their most recent accomplishments is the launch of their Million Download Campaign which has netted over 48,000 Downloads since its January launch, with downloads from over 50 different countries worldwide.  The Campaign was also featured as part of “Social Media Week” in New York and Washington DC in February and, in addition, Ashong was an invited speaker to present the Campaign at Google Headquarters in California during the same month.  Concerning AFropolitan, in the first week of release on broadcast radio the album placed in the Top 50 of the JazzWeek World Music Charts, and their short animated film for the song “Love Rain Down” from the AFropolitan CD was accepted into the Palm Beach International Film Festival for 2012.  And if all this was not enough, “Easy Does It,” another cut from the CD, has won a finalist slot in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, while Ashong was identified by Tonya Pendleton at BlackAmericaWeb.com as one of “Five Brilliant Brothers You Should Know by Now.”

 Along with Ashong, Soulfège’s most celebratory vehicle for the expression of their humanistic message and values is their music.  Derrick N. Ashong & Soulfège are a critically-acclaimed, refreshingly original and exciting group of musicians who have synthesized a blend of Hip-Hop, Reggae, Funk, World Beat and West African Highlife music to create an integral musical mélange of style and substance.  This dynamic six-piece ensemble—propelled by drumming phenomenon Stix ‘Mr. Pocket’ Bones, rock-solid Berklee grad & Funk/Rock bassist Alex Staley, Ghanaian percussion prodigy Atta Addo, and keyboard wizard Micah Hulscher—combines driving rhythms, authentic musicianship, the crisp harmonies of Ashong and Gramling and provocatively elevating lyrics; a combination that transcends and defies even the most imaginative of descriptive capacities.  They are a powerful live act and a vivid new voice that has perpetually electrified audiences with their joyous ‘Afropolitan’ fusion. 

Soulfège’s music and their social movement have been featured in such major media as VanityFair.com, MTV Africa, NPR, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, MNet Africa, ABC Chronicle and BBC Worldservice, reaching 146 million listeners worldwide.  See for yourself what all the hubbub is about and be sure and check out their latest CD release, AFropolitan.

Contact Info: Janet Castiel, Redwood Entertainment, Inc., (212) 543-9998, info@redwoodentertainment.com

The Accolades:

• Selected to showcase at NXNE Music Festival in Toronto on June 16, 2012
• "Easy Does It" from "AFropolitan" selected as a finalist in the John Lennon Songwriing Contest Session II 2011
• "AFropolitan" debuted in the top 50 of JazzWeek World Radio Chart
• Short Film for "Love Rain Down" from "AFropolitan" selected for the Palm  Beach Film Festival and the World Music International FIlm Festival
• "Take Back the Mic" debuted at #8 on JamBands.com/RELIX Magazine Radio Chart
• "Take Back the Mic" Debuted in the Top 100 of JazzWeek World Radio Chart 
• Billboard Songwriting Contest Award for Best Hip-Hop song of 2007.
• Multiple Boston Music Award nominations.
• Nominations for the Independent Music Awards & Boston Urban Music Awards.
• Finalist slot in the 2005 John Lennon Songwriting Contest
• Mainstage showcases at North America's largest college conventions (NACA).

The Media Buzz:

"Poised with a positive vibe and with lyrics so uplifting that you actually believe…out of a species-wide weariness for discord and conflict, a new world mood may emerge from the street and the Net—a spirit of promise and hope and harmony… Soulfege lets us dream such sweet dreams, in vibrant colors." -- VanityFair.com

"...this weekend's performance by Soulfege at Manhattan's Knitting Factory was a rare treat in these way-ironic days: a full-on groove group powering out songs with upbeat melodies, conveyed with such energy, assuredness, and good will that they transcended the ironic, transformed the conversation, and transported the listener beyond the otherwise dismal and downbeat world around them." -- Vanity Fair.com, April 2008

"Its [Soulfège's] members realized they had the platform to reach ears not only with their music - a fusion of thumping African music and rhythms, sweet reggae breezes, funk, and hip-hop - but also with their message." - The Boston Globe, June 2007

"...the band is an exuberant, sinuous mix of highlife, hip-hop, funk and reggae...Soulfège's message of uplift and theinterconnectedness of cultures is easy to attach to, especially since it goes down so smoothly and funkily." - The Providence Journal, January 2007

"[Soulfège] is truly a global band, and global doesn't just mean "other foreign places" as it usually does; in this case it means "across the planet." - Northeast Performer Magazine, January 2006

Instrumentation:

• DNA - vocals, rhythm electric guitar
• Jonathan M Gramling - vocals
• Alex Staley - electric bass
• Stix Bones - drums
• Atta Addo - percussion
• Micah Hulscher - keyboard

Links:

• www.derrickashong.com
• www.facebook.com/soulfege
• www.myspace.com/soulfege
• www.theshiftmovie.com
• www.youtube.com/user/soulfegemusic

Discography

• AFropolitan - LP Fall 2011 
• Take Back The Mic (pre-release) - Digital EP 2008
• Heavy Structured (Plus) - LP 2006
• "Sweet 3Mix" - Single 2006
• The SMT Presents: Sweet Mama Mix - EP 2005
• Heavy Structured - LP 2004
• "Sweet Remix" - Single 2004
• "Sweet Mother" - Single 2004
• PIRATE THIS CD!!! - EP 2003