Meet Asante: Fanshawe’s next big artist

Asante Deluy / Instagram

One of Fanshawe’s own has been nominated for a big award at the Forest City London Music Awards.   Asante is a student of the Music Industry Arts (MIA) program at Fanshawe College and was nominated for FCLMA’s Best Pop Artist 2021.

“I’m not really someone who celebrates.  We will hit milestones and with me, I’m always just ‘head down, keep working’ because I see the bigger picture.  But then as it’s getting closer to the date, and it’s talked about more, you start feeling the honour of being nominated,” Asante says.

“Nowadays, I just get excited and it’s hard for me to keep my head down and not be excited.  Because a lot of big things are happening and I’m not used to celebrating,” says Asante.

Asante’s latest single, “Sunshine”, was mixed and mastered by Alex Emrich, a Fanshawe MIA alumni and an award-winning producer.

“Alex, in terms of engineers, has been one of my favourites because his customer service is the best you can get in engineering in my opinion.  My first song I did with Alex, I sent the song back like 12 times.  Not a lot of engineers will accept that, especially for an upcoming artist.  But he accepted that and he really tried to understand where I was going,” says Asante.

Asante says the MIA program has done a lot to help him advance and better his music as well.  Dan Brodbeck is a MIA professor at Fanshawe.

“He will go on for 20 minutes on one song and explain it in depth.  And that’s what you need, you need real analysis.  He can listen to a song and will take his time to really explain it to you.  You can tell he’s been in the industry and he brings that expertise and being taught by him is actually huge.  He makes it realistic, but very easy to learn.  It’s an honour to be taught by him,” Asante says.

When it comes to Asante’s music, the one thing he really wants his fans to know is that he is authentically himself.

“My music is me.  I’m not lying to you.  A lot of people nowadays are trying to understand my music and get me as a person from my music.  And that’s because of how authentic I’ve been and I love that I’m getting fans reaching out to me being like, yo, you spoke my truth.  To me that’s huge,” he says.

Asante says his music is a lifestyle and he surrounds himself in the vibes he wants to portray to his audience.  He is releasing a “heater pack” this summer and mentions how the vibes on his summer music will be different from his “freezer pack” that he plans to release in the winter.