Asheru ft. Talib Kweli - Mood Swing

Asheru is an award winning, Black American Hip Hop artist, educator,
and youth activist. He is most widely known for performing the opening
and closing themes for the popular TV series, The Boondocks, as well as
his pioneering and innovative efforts to forward the Hip Hop Education
movement.

Asheru grew up in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of
DC for much of his childhood, but also spent some of his time living
and attending school in Barbados, West Indies, the birthplace of his
father. As a youth, many of Asheru’s musical influences came from a
wide range of Hip Hop artists such as Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, KRS One,
Public Enemy, N.W.A., Slick Rick, Doug E. Fresh, Native Tongues,
Pharoahe Monch, and more, as well as the classic Soul, R&B, and Pop
records of the 70’s and 80’s eras that his mother used to play
throughout the house. At the age of 16, he graduated from high school
and attended the University of Virginia, where he finished in 1996 with
a B.A. degree in Anthropology.

After college, one of those
colleagues, Wes Jackson, founded an independent Hip Hop label, Seven
Heads Entertainment, and in 1996 signed its first group, Unspoken
Heard, made up primarily of Asheru and Jackson’s older brother, Robert
Jackson, aka “Blue Black". Asheru and Blue Black went on to release a
series of 12” singles and EPs, and in 2001 released their first album,
“Soon Come”, a critically acclaimed debut, still widely considered a
classic in many Hip Hop circles. In 2003, the group released their
second album “48 Months”, followed by the “No Edge Ups in South Africa”
album, a compilation album of other 7 Heads artists featuring the hit,
“Mood Swing” with Talib Kweli.

Asheru, both as a solo artist
as well as with the group Unspoken Heard, has gone on to travel
extensively throughout Europe, Canada, the US and Japan, performing
alongside artists and groups like Common, Mos Def, Jill Scott, Bilal,
Ludacris, Edo G, J-Live, Wordsworth, and The Roots, while collaborating
and being featured on projects with Hip Hop greats such as Pete Rock,
and Jazzy Jeff. His lyrics are categorized by reflection upon the state
of affairs of the current-day Black American. Through his music, he
demonstrates a desire to improve the attitude of Black people towards
liberation through education and self-empowerment. He currently travels
with a live band, The ELs, made up of a three (sometimes four)-piece
band of accomplished veteran musicians and producers, namely Aquaman,
Mr. Hu, and Zo!

In 2005, Asheru co-founded Educational Lyrics,
LLC, an independent publishing company that creates culturally relevant
cross-curricular teaching materials, the first of which being
[H.E.L.P., or the Hip Hop Educational Literacy Program'.] In an effort
to bridge the gap between Asheru’s two passions -- music and education,
H.E.L.P. is a series of supplemental reading workbooks designed to HELP
students of all reading levels through the innovative usage of Hip Hop
lyrics for critical analysis, multicultural relevance, and effective
literacy instruction.