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'MY OWN PATH'
I see every step as a life-changing win… including driving buses, reveals actor and rapper Bashy
And how the rapper's acting career began
“GRANNY came on a boat,” intones Bashy in his song Made In Britain.
“Granny came on her own,” continues the 39-year-old rapper and actor.
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“Granny came out to England cos she thought the pavements were gold.”
The granny in question is his mother’s mother, Thelma Stanbury.
Born in 1927 and raised in a rural part of Jamaica, Thelma is from the Windrush generation.
With thousands of others, she sailed to these shores after the war in search of a new and prosperous life for her family.
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A recording of the 97-year-old’s voice can be heard at the start of Made In Britain.
In her warm Jamaican accent, she says: “My grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, I wish them the best of health.
“I hope they succeed in whatsover they want to be.”
One of those grandchildren is succeeding in what he wants to be, helping to realise Thelma’s dream — Ashley Thomas, aka Bashy.
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He’s forging a stellar acting career with roles in Black Mirror, crime dramas Top Boy and The Night Of, the 2017 reboot of 24 and the recent BBC adaptation of Great Expectations.
Bashy is currently filming a Netflix political thriller, The Choice, in which Suranne Jones plays the Prime Minister and he is her husband.
MC Bashy - Ransom
But the chief reason I’m talking to him is his second album, a soul-baring song cycle, Being Poor Is Expensive, rooted in his North West London upbringing.
It arrives 15 years after his debut, Catch Me If You Can, the long gap explained, he says, “because acting took centre stage”.
Bearing in mind his dual career paths, I have to get one thing straight before we proceed.
“So what do people call you? I venture.
“Bashy or Ash or Ashley?”
“All three,” he replies with a wry smile.
“And some family members call me Ash Bash.”
We return to the subject of Made In Britain with its distinctive reggae backdrop. I sense it might just be his defining song.
‘A place that could be extremely hostile’
Of his grandmother Thelma’s contribution, Bashy says: “It’s crazy. She’s 97 this week.
“For such a small island, Jamaica has a big footprint on the world in terms of culture and my grandma is my biggest connection to it.”
So how did the recording of Thelma’s voice come about?
“It wasn’t intended for the album. Only later did I think it could be appropriate,” he says.
“I think that’s why it sounds so natural.
“The Windrush generation is getting old and a lot of them are passing away. I wanted to capture my gran’s story while she is still of sound mind.”
The recording happened one day soon after Bashy returned from filming in America.
As he recounts the story, his voice breaks with emotion and his eyes well with tears.
“I realised I hadn’t seen her for a while, and that I missed her, so I went over to her flat,” he recalls.
“I sat down with her and put my phone on record. It was just meant for me and my family if ever we needed comfort.”
Bashy asked Thelma about growing up in Jamaica and about the time she first came to England.
He also watched her deliver that heartfelt message to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
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While his gran gives Made In Britain such a poignant opening, the track also includes a shoutout to another forebear, his father’s father.
This grandparent came from the Caribbean island of Dominica and he found work on the assembly line at the Ford factory in Dagenham.
Bashy says: “My granddad wanted to be an actor when he came over but there just wasn’t a space for him at that time.”
He acknowledges the “sacrifice and selflessness” of the relatives who paved the way for him to reach for the stars half a century later.
“They were brave to leave their homes and come to a place that could be extremely hostile,” he says.
“But they had dignity and grace and a lot of pride.”
Bashy calls to mind “pictures of my grandma and other people from that generation — how they dressed, how they kept their homes.
“They had values and principles that they’ve instilled in my family to this day.
“They were prepared to give up everything they knew so that future generations would have opportunity.”
My interview with Bashy takes place before the appalling race riots blighting Britain this summer.
I ask him how far this country has progressed in its attitudes since the Windrush generation made their one-way journey from the Caribbean.
“A lot of progress has been made since my grandma and her generation came over,” he affirms.
“We’ve had activists who have helped change how people like me and her are viewed and accepted.
“For me to be here, to be on these TV series, to release my own album independently — that is opportunity my grandma simply didn’t have.
“A lot of change has happened,” he concludes, before adding a note of caution, “but I think there’s a long way to go.”
Bashy was born in Hammersmith before moving to the borough of Brent in the north west of the capital, first living in a small council flat.
“Then my mum and dad managed to make some moves and buy a house in Kensal Rise,” he says.
“But when I was growing up, the area could be tough and rough.
“Brent is one of the poorest boroughs in London. With it comes elements of crime and people trying to survive in that environment.
“I was lucky — I had both parents in the house and both were loving, hard workers.”
The first track on Bashy’s new album is called The London Borough Of Brent, his reflection on the gritty area, which he also describes as “a vibrant cultural melting pot.”
‘Activists changed how we are viewed’
He remembers all the great food shops where he discovered “a whole lot of flavours” — West Indian, Lebanese, Nigerian, Ghanaian among them.
Bashy’s first taste of music was Lovers Rock, a romantic form of reggae listened to by his parents and now sampled on his album.
He says: “Growing up in my house, it was Dennis Brown, Garnett Silk, Janet Kay, Freddie McGregor — these are legendary artists in my community.”
He remembers his dad’s pride and joy, “a bright red BMW 3 Series”, and trips to see his grandparents with Lovers Rock blaring through the car speakers.
By the time he was 12, Bashy was getting into hip hop.
“Jay-Z, Nas, Jadakiss — those were my main three.”
He loves the way rap music is infused with a strong sense of place.
“If you want to know about New York, you listen to Jay-Z and Nas,” he says.
“If you want to find out about Compton, you listen to Kendrick Lamar and Nipsey Hussle.
“And if you want to know about North West London and African Caribbean lives, you can listen to my album. It will transport you.”
Though, as he says, “acting is what I started doing first”, Bashy long harboured dreams of a music career.
He says: “I think music came from curiosity and from wanting to express myself in a different way to acting. And it kept me out of trouble!
“Luckily, my friend’s mum would let us make a load of noise in her house — Friday evening, Saturday all day, Saturday evening.
‘I’ve always trodden my own path’
“My friend had his Technics 410S [deck] and all his vinyl. We’d have a mic plugged in and we’d be making all these tapes, really honing the craft.”
At school, however, Bashy excelled in drama and it won him a place at The BRIT School in Croydon.
That hotbed of talent lists singers Amy Winehouse, Adele, Loyle Carner and FKA Twigs among its alumni as well as actors Tom Holland and Cush Jumbo.
For Bashy, success didn’t come instantly, as he explains.
“I left The BRIT School at 19 but didn’t know how to navigate getting an agent.
“So I went to university and studied something I wasn’t passionate about, digital media, so I left.”
Short of money but still hoping to pursue his “out-and-out passions, acting and music”, Bashy decided to get regular jobs until he figured things out.
“First, I worked as a postman for the Royal Mail in Hampstead and then I drove a bus,” he says.
In his song Blessed, he reflects on those days and how he managed to keep his life on the straight and narrow.
“Used to drive the 114 to Mill Hill/Keeping it real, never did trap or drill/Never sniffed sniff, never took pills.”
Bashy tells me: “I was 21 and I needed money so I applied and did the training to be a bus driver.
“I drove a double-decker on three routes — the 114 [Ruislip to Mill Hill], the 183 [Golders Green to Pinner] and the 292 [Colindale to Borehamwood].”
Of that time, he says: “I see every step as a life-changing win. Even bus driving has given me experience that I’ve poured into my acting.
“I haven’t come straight out of drama school and then into productions. I’ve seen real everyday life. Bus drivers are dealing with a lot. They are keeping people safe, navigating the traffic and trying to get to their destination on time.
“People could treat them better. It gave me an understanding.”
Bashy’s first break in music came with the theme song for Adulthood, the sequel to British teen crime drama Kidulthood.
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At 24, he made his debut album, 2009’s Catch Me If You Can, about which he has mixed feelings.
“I was still finding out who I was as a person and still trying to navigate my life,” he says.
“At my core, I’ve always been me but I didn’t have the complete confidence that I have now. I was chasing something. I could see peers getting success.
“The music industry had a certain sound at the time and I think I was trying to shoehorn myself into that but it wasn’t really me.
“I’ve never really been a follower. I’ve always trodden my own path.”
In the aftermath of his first record, Bashy enjoyed a couple of years of doing “relatively well”.
But then came another lean period.
“I was without money and really, really struggling,” he says.
“I was going through personal things with my family. There were illnesses and I was just trying to survive that time.
“I ended up selling my clothes, trainers, anything I didn’t need of value.
“But, by the grace of God, I got through it. I was fortunate.”
‘That was one of my most fun characters’
Acting roles in British TV series such as Black Mirror and Bafta Award-winning Top Boy started coming.
Then Bashy landed the part of Calvin Hart, an inmate at Rikers Island, in the acclaimed HBO prison drama The Night Of alongside Riz Ahmed and John Turturro.
Last year, he starred as Jaggers in the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and was nominated for the Breakthrough Award from the Royal Television Society.
“That was one of my most fun characters,” he says.
Now Bashy is working with the “incredible” Suranne Jones as the British PM and Julie Delpy as the French president on Netflix’s political thriller The Choice.
Add to that an album by an artist who finally feels comfortable in his own skin.
“I am more myself now than I’ve ever been,” he says.
“As I get older, there’s less bravado, less ego and more understanding of who I am.”
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Bashy will never forget the sacrifices made by his beloved grandparents.
Because of them, he says, “I am an ordinary person having an extraordinary life.”
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