Ashley 'Dotty' Charles: 'Few moments compare to meeting Oprah!'
Ashley “Dotty” Charles is the host of BBC’s 1Xtra breakfast show. Charles, 32, grew up in south London with two brothers and a sister and began rapping at 13. After a brief spell in Los Angeles with her family as a teenager, Charles moved back to the UK, graduated from Kingston University and, in 2012, signed to Virgin Records – the first British female MC to sign a major label album deal in more than a decade. She now lives in Surrey with her wife and their three-year-old son, with another baby on the way. Her forthcoming debut book, Outraged: Why Everyone Is Shouting and No One Is Talking, is published by Bloomsbury.
Your book is a swipe at the empty rhetoric of activism that only exists with a hashtag online. It’s timely now, but what prompted it?I was on holiday in Thailand when I checked my phone – I shouldn’t have – and landed on an online feeding frenzy, one of those occasional social media moments where everyone is shouting about the same thing. Wall-to-wall fury. The currency of outrage, to me, was so twisted that I ended up writing about it in the Guardian. The feedback was amazing and I felt I’d found my tribe. Book publishers got in touch after that.
People have been out on the streets for Black Lives Matter even during a global pandemic. How does it feel to witness?This is such a powerful time. In the book, I talk about “clicktivism” – activism that lives and dies online and is of no consequence because it’s not mobilised. And I think, for the first time, a lot of the people protesting are 18and 19-year-olds who haven’t engaged at this level before.
Do you believe it is a pivotal moment, one that will have lasting effects?Absolutely. You’re seeing tangible change. Police departments in the US are being defunded. The revolution won’t happen online but the power of the internet can change everything. It’s the platform that triggers the dialogue and for young people who are going to shape the future, the ideas for them are sparked there. I don’t want to be hyperbolic about it but it does feel as though this is the moment. There is something in the air.
Outrage feels positive in that context but, as you have observed, it’s become wildly overused too. Where Jamie Oliver’s “jerk rice” can provoke as much noise as genuine social injustice…I think we have to be really vigilant in our outrage. We need to realise what is and isn’t worth engaging in. I’m somebody who has also engaged in absolute shit online. We do it because there’s so much in the world that is just insurmountable. And it’s much easier to start slagging off Piers Morgan than it is, as an individual, to start trying to deconstruct institutional racism. If we can exert that energy collectively on the bigger issues, and bring down the systems rather than the individuals, we will, as we are seeing now with the Black Lives Matter movement, see real change.
You spend a chapter speaking to and deconstructing Katie Hopkins. What did you learn, if anything?That we can suffocate purveyors of hate like Katie Hopkins by disengaging with them.
How do we revalue outrage when it is the social currency of our press, politicians, and national debate?It’s so difficult. This book isn’t a manual. It’s not me saying these are the answers and this is what we need to do. For me personally, how I revalue my outrage is that I channel my responses. I’m so mindful of what does, and doesn’t warrant my engagement. I don’t think we realise how much of a toll it takes to be perpetually outraged. So often, we’ll see something awful, like a Daily Mail headline, whether it’s a misstep or a massive atrocity, and then we’ll retweet it and comment how awful this thing is, but you’ve now just shared it to your network. You’ve made it louder than it was
a second ago.
What has your lockdown been like? The first stage was quite nice, it felt like we were collectively taking a pause. We were having three elaborate meals a day, doing puzzles, we created an athome nursery experience for our son… Now we’re just watching Netflix and trying to keep our kid out of the washing machine.
You’ve smashed 1Xtra’s listening figures with the breakfast show. What’s the secret to your success? I don’t think there is a secret! Broadcasting is all about speaking to people and I think I’m fortunate to be able to have so many great conversations with listeners. There’s nothing I love more than fading up a caller and sharing the airwaves with someone who I might never have met otherwise. When someone from Bristol comes on air to tell you about an awful date they went on or a mother gets in touch to say their kids have ripped the curtains down… I love being invited into people’s lives, it’s a massive honour.
Your career has gone to the next level in the phast couple of years. What have the “pinch me” moments been? There have been so many but few compare to meeting Oprah. I interviewed her for my show and was then invited to introduce her at a film premiere the next day. So there we were behind the screen at a central London cinema and I was getting ready to warm the audience up for her Q&A when she grabbed my hand. She squeezed it and told me that life has a funny way of making sure your paths cross with the people you simply must meet. “You are one of those people for me” she said. Absolutely mental.
• Outraged by Ashley “Dotty” Charles is published by Bloomsbury (£14.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15
It does feel as though this is the moment. There is something in the air