Asheru

Asheru
Asheru
	Rapper, producer, teacher
Years active	1996–present
Labels	Seven Heads Entertainment (1996–2001) Guerilla Arts Ink, LLC: The Un-label (2001–present)
Website	[1]

Gabriel C. Benn (born December 29, 1974), better known as Asheru, is an American

youth activist. He performed the opening and closing themes for the popular TV series, The Boondocks

.

Early life and music

As a youth, Asheru's musical influences were a wide range of hip hop artists as well as

R&B, and Pop from the 1970s and 1980s that his mother used to play. He graduated from high school at 16 and attended the University of Virginia, where he graduated in 1996 with a B.A. in Anthropology. His classmate Wesley Jackson founded an independent Hip Hop label, Seven Heads Entertainment, which in 1996 signed the group Unspoken Heard, made up of Asheru and Jackson's older brother, Robert Jackson, known as Blue Black. Asheru and Blue Black released a series of 12" singles and EPs, and in 2001 released their first album, Soon Come. In 2003, the group released their second album 48 Months, followed by the No Edge Ups in South Africa album, a compilation album of other Seven Heads artists featuring the single "Mood Swing", with Talib Kweli

.

Asheru has performed throughout Europe, Canada, the US and Japan, both solo and with Unspoken Heard, as well as collaborating on projects with artists such as Pete Rock and DJ Jazzy Jeff. He currently travels with a live band, The ELs.

The Boondocks

Asheru collaborated with

Peabody Award

in 2006.

Education

Asheru has also taught in the

Ballou Senior High School in Washington, D.C. He also works with schools and juvenile detention centers to promote literacy as an intervention against youth violence, crime, unemployment, and incarceration.^[3]

In 2005, Asheru co-founded Educational Lyrics, a publishing company that produces cross-curricular teaching materials, such as the Hip-Hop Educational Literacy Program (HELP), a series of supplemental reading workbooks that use hip-hop lyrics to teach critical analysis and multicultural relevance to students of all reading levels.[4]

Discography

Cosmology EP...Unspoken Heard (1997)
Better/Smiley 12"... Unspoken Heard (1998)
Jamboree EP ... Asheru (1999)
Soon Come LP ... Unspoken Heard (2001)
48 Months LP... Unspoken Heard (2003)
Mood Swing 12"... Asheru feat. Talib Kweli & Raheem DeVaughn (2003)
No Edge Ups in South Africa ...Seven Heads Entertainment (2003)
Black Moses 12".... Asheru (2005)
Insomnia Vol.1 LP... Asheru (2006)
Insomnia Vol.1: Sleepless in Japan…(IMPORT ONLY) (2006)
Hip-Hop Docktrine: The Official Boondocks Mixtape... Asheru, various artists (2006)
3 Stars, 2 Bars EP... Asheru (2007)
Hip-Hop Docktrine 2 (The Saga Continues)... Asheru, various artists (2007)
"Insight" on Fort Knox Five Album Radio Free DC (2008)
"I am Hip Hop" on Clin d'oeil Album with Jazz Liberatorz (2008)
Hip-Hop Docktrine 3 (The Final Chapter)... Asheru, various artists (2010)
Sleepless in Soweto LP.... Asheru (2013)

References

^ "WHILE THEY SLEEP (REMIX)". ASCAP. American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Retrieved April 28, 2023.
^ "Gabriel "Asheru" Benn – Curry School of Education". Archived from the original on June 23, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2015.
^ "By night, Asheru. By day, Mr. Benn. A hip-hop artist transforms education". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 22, 2015.
^ "Gabriel "Asheru" Benn – Curry School of Education". Archived from the original on June 23, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2015.

External links

Burton, Orisanmi. "Asheru: Education, MCing & The Bonototiousondocks...". Allhiphop.com. August 14, 2008. May 26, 2010.
http://www.edlyrics.com

[1] "WHILE THEY SLEEP (REMIX)". ASCAP. American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. Retrieved April 28, 2023.

[2] "Gabriel "Asheru" Benn – Curry School of Education". Archived from the original on June 23, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2015.

[3] "By night, Asheru. By day, Mr. Benn. A hip-hop artist transforms education". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 22, 2015.

[4] "Gabriel "Asheru" Benn – Curry School of Education". Archived from the original on June 23, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2015.

[3]