Will Ashon, like Dante, found himself lost in a wood in middle age. Unlike Dante, Ashon had spent most of his adult life running a record label, discovering and signing names from Roots Manuva to Kate Tempest to Speech Debelle. He’d also been a hip-hop journalist and a novelist, but his midlife collywobbles prompted a different kind of writing, a book, Strange Labyrinth, which tells the cultural history of Epping Forest. Ashon explores the woody edgeland that straddles London’s East End, turning up gloriously peculiar stories of outlaws, punk rockers and frantic doggers. He lives in Walthamstow, north-east London.
Why the move from hip-hop to psychogeography?
Running a record label is hard work. It sounds glamorous in theory but in practice it’s a very full-on office job. And for every moment where you feel you’ve helped someone achieve what they deserve, there are all the moments where it goes slightly wrong. The music business is not big on natural justice. Or talent, for that matter. I still feel a lot of affection for the label, though, and for hip-hop more generally. I like to think of quotes as samples!