“Never Forget,” the first song from Ashon’s Every Knight Is Reign, starts with a recording of a storm, a nod to the play on words in the album’s title. A laid-back piano enters the picture, chiming chords from an electric piano, a bubbling bass, easy-swinging drums. “Soon as I started this, I knew I was a part of this,” raps Ashon T. Alston. He proceeds to tell a story of how he got into rap, the mixing of his ambitions and his strategy amid a childhood of friends, discovering music, trouble, police raids. “Tell me how can I forget?”
Every Knight Is Reign reveals a young New Haven-based MC with something to say. “Never Forget” serves as a musical handshake; “Shadow Sessions” finds Ashon ruminating on wealth and fame from the perspective of a young man leading a very precarious existence, featuring a chilling moment in which a gunshot interrupts his flow. “The Rising” tells the story of a trying to save a friend from drugs while also talking about the social conditions that led to there being drug problems in the first place. “When Sun Touch Gold” returns to a tough childhood, but one laced with moments of tenderness, too, and one that Ashon compares to the pitfalls of wealth. And “Seventh Knight” brims with the rapper’s ambitions to make things better for himself and those around him. In every song, Ashon emerges as a keen observer, wise beyond his years, a person who was forced to develop a tough skin early, but still managed to keep a loudly beating heart within.
Ashon has also found a near-perfect match in producer Ghost in the Crates (a.k.a. Aaron P. Moynihan), who layers samples from speeches, pulsing beats, and lush backdrops to create just the right emotional space for Ashon’s lyrics. Together, the rapper and producer have made a poignant album that’s a dispatch from the streets, a memoir, and a statement of artistic intent all in one. As the title suggests, Every Knight Is Reign is written from a place of sadness, but embedded in that is the strength to hope for a sunny day.
Ashon’s Every Knight Is Reign is available on Bandcamp.