ASHE 22

Ashe 22, born Hamza Khadraoui in 1996 in Algiers, is a French-Algerian rapper based in Lyon, where his family settled when he was eight years old. He is affiliated with the Lyonzon collective. As a teenager he served two years in prison for drug trafficking, and it was after his release in 2017 that he turned seriously to music, debuting as a rapper in the spring of 2018.

Ashe 22 quickly stood out for a distinctive delivery: a low, calm voice paired with a murmured, jerky flow that sits over so-called no melody instrumentals, built on heavy 808 bass with little or no melodic line. This stripped-down, bass-driven aesthetic made him one of the most recognizable voices of French drill. He was remarkably prolific, releasing three projects in 2019 alone, which cemented his reputation as a pioneer of the sub-genre in France.

By 2020 his audience had grown substantially, with hundreds of thousands of monthly listeners on Spotify, and he gave interviews to specialized outlets such as Booska-P. That year he also teased his fifth solo project, Ashe Tape, Vol. 3. Songs like «Scellé», «X3» and «BRRR» remain among his most recognized tracks, showcasing the murmured, minimal-melody style that defines his catalog.