Derrick Ashong '97 (Musician & Activist, AFROPOLITAN, THE STREAM)
By Mark Saltveit '83
Many Harvard grads have gained fame, but very few have gone viral on the Internet, that most distinctive and mysterious achievement of this new century. Derrick Ashong has, and he offers a lesson in how to harness this "lightning in a bottle" to build a serious media career.
In 2008, while attending a McCain-Obama debate, he was approached by a conservative videographer who pressed him aggressively on why he supported Obama. Ashong was casually dressed, wearing his trademark cowrie shell necklace, and the interviewer seemed to expect a slack or ignorant response, not Ashong's spontaneously eloquent and authoritative explanation of health care policy.
The clip garnered more than a million and a half hits before the videographer took it off YouTube, and Derrick's "Emotional Response" (explaining directly why he supports Obama ) has garnered another 450,000 views. This naturally drew other responses, from laudatory articles in the New York Times and the Economist, to blogged suspicions that it was a set-up, and a YouTube song (apparently by a BU undergrad) that offers some "mad negative feedback" on Ashong.
More importantly, Ashong used the recognition to open a second front in his media career as a public speaker, host of a political radio show on Oprah Winfrey's satellite radio network, and now as moderator of THE STREAM, a new, ground-breaking television (and Internet) program on Al Jazeera English.
The first front was musical – he leads the positive world beat/hip-hop group Soulfège, which has been on tour all summer long in support of its new album AFROPOLITAN, and has been active since his undergraduate years, when he formed the band "Black Rose" and wrote and produced a musical called "Songs we Can't Sing."
Ashong's signature look includes a shaved head and a necklace of cowrie shells, simple, natural and elegant. "Hip-hop artists wear all this bling, gold and diamonds, but people were hurt getting all of that," he notes. Cowrie shell necklaces were used as currency in Ghana, back in the day. They're handmade, and you couldn't even buy one today. To Ashong, it illustrates beauty, power and wealth that no one suffered to provide.
Though he shies away from the label "WorldBeat," it's unavoidable for someone who was born in Ghana, lived for years in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and New York, and travels the world lecturing and playing with his band. His eclectic background proved perfect for his latest project, as Al Jazeera is based in Qatar.
THE STREAM is a remarkable innovation, a political program fully immersed in social media and the online world. The show's twitter feed, fueled by viewers, scrolls up one wall of the slick Washington DC studio, and stories focus on political issues mediated through online activism around the world. There is no (Charlie) #sheenteam silliness here; the show has been perfectly placed and timed to chronicle the Arab Spring and similar, less publicized revolts in places such as Equatorial Guinea, Dakar and Belarus, all fed by young, Internet-savvy activists.
"THE STREAM was not developed in response to the 'Arab Spring,'" Ashong notes. "It has been in development since last fall, but these events are certainly reinforcing that we're on the right path." Given Al Jazeera's limited availability and the show's focus on Mediterranean and Third World countries, it remains to be seen how popular the show will become in the United States. But anyone who wants to see what direction television will take in the online century is well advised to check it out. Naturally, it is available streaming online (with extra content before and after each episode) as well as on Al Jazeera English, at 04:30 and 08:30 GMT.
In the long run, Ashong would love to make a difference in Ghana, his native land, which is progressing rapidly. The changes there are not as camera-ready as the Arab Spring, he concedes, but Ghana has had democracy for a decade now, and financial services and I.T. are the fastest rising sectors. He'd like to make a difference in the entrepreneurial/tech arena, but you need a certain amount of political clout to do so today, and he is waiting to build that up.
It's an ambitious and complicated goal, but don't count him out. Derrick has proved a master of adapting to rapidly changing situations, and learning how to master them. Internet popularity is not something that can be created, or controlled, but it can be managed. That YouTube video critical of him has a total of 196 views as I write this; Derrick's clips have millions, and rising.
Check out tunes from Soulfège's latest work, AFROPOLITAN, here.