Derrick Ashong

Derrick N. Ashong, also known as "DNA", (born 1975 in Accra, Ghana), is a musician, artist, activist, and entrepreneur.

Born in a house with no running water in Accra, Ghana in 1975, Derrick Ashong is the son of a pediatrician. He attended school in Brooklyn, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Voorhees, New Jersey before attending Harvard University in 1997 where he studied Afro-American studies and was awarded the Hoopes Prize for his senior thesis. After being naturalized as an American citizen, he returned to Harvard through a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, and studied for a PhD in Ethnomusicology and Afro-American studies, until Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame invited him to come work at his entertainment company, Weapons of Mass Entertainment. Ashong was a founding member of the Harvard Black Alumni Society and founded the Black Men's Forum.

Derrick Ashong is married and has two children.

Ashong's musical career started while at Harvard. He produced a musical entitled Songs We Can't Sing, for which he won awards, before forming a band called "Black Rose". The band later became known as Soulfège. Ashong has worked with such established artists as Debbie Allen, Janet Jackson, & Bobby McFerrin, and is MC and leader of Soulfège, under the name "DNA", producing works that have aired globally via outlets including MTV Africa, MNet Africa and BBC World Service.

In 1997, Ashong had a role in Steven Spielberg's Amistad, playing the character Buakei, a role he gained through attending an open audition in New York City. He also appeared in a 2006 documentary about the Angola 3, entitled 3 Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation. Ashong founded a talent agency, ASAFO Productions.

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