Asha (British radio broadcaster and DJ)

Asha, British radio broadcaster and club DJ

Asha (born London 1975) is a British radio presenter, club DJ and actress of Guyanese ancestry, who hosts shows on BBC 6 Music as well as Choice FM. She is also a regular contributor to BBC Radio 5 Live.

Before becoming a broadcaster and DJ, Asha worked for the independent music PR company Media Village, with clients including Sony, EMI, Warner Music and various underground labels. She was poached by Warner to look after artists ranging from Shola Ama to Madonna.

It was on Choice FM that she began her broadcasting career with a twice-weekly show, but before long she was spotted and recruited by Galaxy 102.2 (Birmingham). There, in 2001, her mid-morning shows hit over 270,000 music fans each week and her daily 9am-1pm show enjoyed the highest ratings on Galaxy, surpassing the station's breakfast and drive-time shows. She returned to Choice FM in 2004 to co-present the breakfast show, where her distinctive style of presentation added more than half a million listeners a week. Stars she has interviewed include Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Destiny's Child, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Juliette Lewis, Paul Weller and the Sugababes.

Asha has DJ’d in many popular London nightclubs including The End, The Playrooms, Clique, Eve, and China Whites, as well as across the UK. She also regularly plays in Athens, Ayia Napa, Ibiza, Miami, and Milan and most recently in several eastern European countries.

Her notable television work includes an exclusive Mariah Carey interview screened on Carlton TV. Asha also co-presented the Box Live concert at Birmingham’s National Indoor Area, interviewing pop celebrities, and has featured on MTV’s Lick Special and Celebrity Bodies on Trouble. Her voice can be heard on several advertisements for prominent artists such as Groove Armada, Fergie, Busta Rhymes, Eve, Unklejam.

Having studied acting at the Birmingham School of Acting and the Central School of Speech and Drama, Asha counts among her acting credits the award-winning short film "Speed date", directed by Mark Jackson, "An East End Tale" by Charles Michel Duke and "Destitute Immigrant", a political drama about homeless refugees in Britain.

In 2003 she set up the "Hey Miss DJ" project, which has helped hundreds of young female fans with advice on DJ’ing. She frequently hosts or DJs events for charity and in September 2007 took part in the 5-kilometre Hydroactive race to raise funds for the African Caribbean Leukemia Trust.