Asheville rapper Ashes Clay poised to hit it big

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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I haven’t seen anything in the Asheville media about local rapper Ashes Clay, but it looks like he’s working hard to hit the big time. Clay is from Asheville.

Looks like he’s got an influential friend in Anthony Hamilton, whose new album just dropped. Here’s Hamilton talking about his Asheville homeboy in a recent interview:

SR: So what are you saying on this album? I know the point of it all is love but let’s just start with the first single. I never expected you to work with David Banner, but it’s dope.

Anthony Hamilton: He’s country like I am, he’s from the South, I’m from the South. He can wear flip flops in the store with some socks on and I can do it. We both enjoy fried chicken and baked chicken mostly without a lot of salt. So we are actually the same people just different characters played in one big play. I met him at one of the Grammy brunches and a pre telecasts of the BET awards and we hit it off really well and I just felt like he was supposed to be part of that song and a part of my career. You meet people at a certain time of your life. I’ve been knowing Nelly and all these people I just could never think of their names at a time to put people on the record, but David Banner stood out, you know how God makes things apparent.

SR: You called him or he came to you?

AH: We called him. It was a song I already had, it had another rapper on it, from Asheville his name is Ashes Clay who is one of my artists but Jive wanted me to have the best of the best this time. They were like ‘Anthony we understand that’s your homeboy, he sounds good but you need somebody to bring it to the mainstream, we need a name brand.’ They were willing to fight for me if I was willing to fight for myself and I couldn’t turn down the opportunity and he understood, Ashes.

I’ve gleaned little else about the life and times of Ashes Clay. Does anybody know this guy’s story? Where’s he from? Where’d he go to high school? What’s his real name?

Here’s an Anthony Hamilton video for your enjoyment: