Ash Shakur helps you cast off self-doubt with ‘Plenty Of’

Musi­cian and illus­tra­tor Ash Shakur wants you to believe in your­self, and he’s ready to help you spear those demons of self-doubt with new song ‘Plen­ty of ***’.

“I want­ed peo­ple to feel spe­cial and to know that there is only one you, and there is only one me, yet still hav­ing plen­ty of things in com­mon,” said Shakur.

Over its gelati­nous, chip­tune beat, pro­duced by The Beat Plug, Shakur deliv­ers his lines with a res­olute con­cen­tra­tion, and reminds you to take heart in what you have and what good you can still cre­ate yourself.

This is self-moti­va­tion for those days when you face knock­back after anoth­er – like ‘Fin­ished I Ain’t’ by Ghost­po­et or ‘In Due Time’ by Out­Kast. Also, if you remem­ber dial-up inter­net and MSN Mes­sen­ger, you will get a real kick out of its clos­ing skit.

For ‘Plen­ty of ***’, the south Lon­don artist drew inspi­ra­tion from a children’s book called Harold and the Pur­ple Cray­on.

“The main pro­tag­o­nist with his cray­on had the pow­ers to cre­ate a world of his own sim­ply by draw­ing it. I relat­ed to that because my love for cre­ativ­i­ty start­ed at an ear­ly age when I would draw on any­thing,” he said.

Shakur, who is also known as Art Life Ash, is co-founder of the col­lec­tive Art Life Cen­tral, and has spent the past few years express­ing him­self through fash­ion, art and music. His pre­vi­ous tracks include ‘Nev­er Alone’, ‘Nokia’ and ‘Shine’.

Find Shakur on Face­book, Twit­ter and Insta­gram.

Image: Robin Rene